


Vicious Velvet

by consulalexander



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: All Human, Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Feels, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Lightwood sibling shenanigans, Lots of Angst, M/M, Robert Lightwood is a dick, lots of fluff, maryse redemption, probably crying, probably sex, restaurant AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2019-12-18 12:38:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 35,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18250016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consulalexander/pseuds/consulalexander
Summary: “The Institute. Where many have gone to be lost in the sea of scallops and truffles and demi-glacé, of boredeaux and top shelf whiskey and dim, flickering candles on heavy, expensive table clothes...”The restaurant was Maryse and Robert Lightwood’s dream. They built a legacy as a dynasty of the restaurant industry, their children knowing nothing but that world. But as Alec, Isabelle, and Jace navigate their futures, they learn that, sooner or later, all dynasties must fall.The Sweetbitter-inspired restaurant AU no one asked for, starring Malec, Clace and Sizzy feels galore.





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> My attempt at a Shadowhunters/TMI restaurant AU, inspired by the novel Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler. If you haven't read it, especially if you've worked in the restaurant industry, GO READ IT.
> 
> I've worked in the restaurant industry for many years now, but even with my experience I can't boast complete factual accuracy so pls be gentle.
> 
> I'm merging inspirations from both The Mortal Instruments book series and the Shadowhunters TV show because it's my fic and I can and because Matthew Daddario is dreamy and wonderful but Alec will always be my precious BLUE EYED son. 
> 
> Title is from the song "High Hopes in Velvet" by The Cab.
> 
> These are not my characters, don't eat me.

_“For a moment, or a second, the pinched expressions of the cynical, world-weary, throat-cutting, miserable bastards we’ve all had to become disappears, when we’re confronted with something as simple as a plate of food.” — Anthony Bourdain_

 

**Part One**

 

The Institute.

The sign reads like a death sentence, like it’s judging her, creeping under her hot, flushed skin. It’s where many have gone to be lost in the sea of scallops and truffles and demi-glacé, of boredeaux and top shelf whiskey and dim, flickering candles on heavy, expensive table clothes.

It’s her first day, and Clary Fray is positively terrified.

“Relax, you look like you’re constipated,” Simon Lewis, her best friend since the days of diapers and coloring on walls, says from behind her.

“Have you seen where you work?” Clary asks, still unmoving. “It makes Mordor look appealing.”

“Nah, that’s only Maryse, our resident Sauron. She’s always in her office, anyway, you’ll never see her.”

Clary doesn’t quite believe him. Simon’s only been working there for six months, but he seems to have forgotten the traumatic hour he spent, just like her, alone in a room with Maryse Lightwood, owner and manager of The Institute Bistro. She’s still not sure how she landed this job, Simon’s good word be damned.

Simon pushes her forward toward the dark double doors.

“C’mon, we’re gonna be late,” he says.

_It’s just another job, Clary. Woman the hell up._

Simon opens the front doors, ushering her inside. The restaurant is dimly lit; she can barely see her hand out in front of her as her eyes adjust from the bright sunlight outside. It’s empty save for the employees walking around in their perfectly pressed black clothes, getting everything ready to open.

A woman with a long, intricate blonde braid stands next to one of the closest tables to the door, filling a line of crystal salt and pepper shakers, expertly sweeping any spills off the immaculate red tablecloth and into her palm with a silver crumber.

“Hey, Lydia,” Simon calls to her. “Is Maryse in?”

The aforementioned Lydia looks up, eyeing Clary with interest. Clary squirms a little under her gaze; it’s hard, intrigued at her squeaky clean newness but laced with potential judgment.

She’s bordering on panic now.

“No, not today, she had a meeting with the lawyers,” Lydia says, wiping her hands on the crisp black apron tied around her waist.

Simon steps back so he’s a hair behind Clary, nudging her forward gently.

“This is Clary, she’s the new host,” Simon says. “Clary, this is Lydia, one of the servers.”

Lydia sticks out her hand; her shake is firm, an iron vice around Clary’s hand.

“Nice to meet you,” she says officially. “Welcome to The Institute.”

Clary smiles, albeit a little wary. “Good to be here.”

Lydia leans forward, still gripping her hand, like she’s about to tell Clary a secret.

“Pro tip,” she says, “get better shoes.”

Clary looks down at her worn black Converse and flushes to match her fiery hair.

“Tried to tell her but Fray’s a Converse addict,” Simon laughs, side-eyeing Clary. “She needs to go to shoe rehab. Can’t pry them from her cold dead hands.”

“They’re comfortable!” Clary retorts.

Normally, she’d laugh right along with him, but she’s no longer Simon’s confident best friend. She’s a vibrating bundle of nerves, her thoughts screaming _fuck I knew I should’ve splurged on some stupid server shoes, of course it’s the first thing she notices, god I’m not going to fit here._

Simon gives Clary a look like she’s having a stroke, and clears his throat.

“Um, where’s Alec then?” he asks.

Lydia waves her hand vaguely, already back to the shakers.

“Somewhere in the wine cellar I think,” she says. “I heard yelling down there earlier.”

Simon grabs Clary’s arm and drags her toward the pristine bar, ducking behind the glossy mahogany counter and descending down a darkened stairwell in the back hallway. The door at the bottom screeches open, deafening, and then they’re in a modest cement-walled cellar, the musty air curling around them. Rows of wooden shelves line the walls and stand from floor to ceiling, bottles of varying sizes and dust accumulation stuffed in every crevice. Two large, industrial refrigerators dominate the back wall, displaying columns of white wine.

A man stands there with his back turned, writing in a small notebook.

“Hey, Alec,” Simon shouts, leading Clary over to him.

Alec turns, stowing the notebook in his back pocket. He’s incredibly tall, which only exacerbates Clary’s five feet two inches. His eyes are piercingly blue, making Clary somewhat uncomfortable in their fierceness, and the sleeves of his black dress shirt are pushed up to reveal black, swirling tattoos. A small, dangling silver earring in his left ear catches the dim light and sparkles, odd and delicate on his large frame. He’d be handsome if he wasn’t scowling.

“Sorry to bug you,” Simon says hurriedly, “but Maryse isn’t here and Clary starts hosting today.”

Alec’s eyes flick over to Clary, narrowing at her in distrust.

“I know, Mom told me she was starting today,” Alec says gruffly.

_Mom?_

Suddenly, Clary realizes who this is. Alexander Lightwood, eldest son of Maryse and Robert Lightwood, assistant manager and bartender at The Institute and a general pain in Simon’s ass. Clary recalls countless agitated phone calls and emergency coffee runs these past six months, Simon consistently bitching about some entitled asshole named Alec who hated Simon for no real reason.

This asshole, apparently.

Alec grabs a bottle off the nearby shelf and points it at her.

“Should be a pretty typical Wednesday,” he snaps. “Nothing too crazy. You’ll be shadowing Simon. Your job is to answer phones, take people to their seats, taking and calling reservations, and maintaining the flow of the restaurant. A monkey could do it. I’m bartending. Lydia, Maia, Jace and Helen are serving, try not the get in the way.”

He pulls the bottle away and gives her an obvious, stern once over, lips curling into a grimace when he spots her shoes. “Uniform is all black, no jeans, no t-shirts, and lose the Converse next time.”

Alec walks up the stairs, the floorboards creaking under his feet. Clary stares after him, mouth ajar, before turning to Simon incredulously.

“Does he ever smile?” she asks.

Simon shrugs. “I’ve never seen it. He might not even know how.”

Clary sticks her tongue out at the direction Alec just went and follows Simon back up the stairs into the heart of the restaurant.

“You clock on in the kitchen,” Simon says.

She tails him down the steps (the bar and host station are on a platform, while the rest of the restaurant stretches out down a small flight of stairs) and through the vast main room, her feet springing on the plush blood red carpeting. Simon pushes past two massive steel doors in the back, gleaming like a looking glass.

Suddenly, Clary’s immersed in the chaos of the kitchen as they prepare for the day.

Two men on the line, dressed in crisp black chef coats with blood red detailing on the cuffs and collar, are shouting at each other in Spanish. Hypnotic Latin bass thumps in the background from speakers mounted on the wall. A man with his hair tied back in a braid is swaying his hips to the beat, mixing something white in a large steel bowl. People push past the doors at regular intervals, barely giving Simon and Clary a glance. They’re carrying buckets or trays or come in to shout something at one of the men before ducking back into the ether. It’s a controlled disaster; Clary doesn’t know where to look first.

“Into the fray, Fray,” Simon teases, leading her down the aisle between the doors and the first set of stainless steel counter tops.

Clary rolls her eyes. They head to the far back of the kitchen, toward a small door labeled “office”. The glass panes on the door are ancient with dust, the glass itself crawling toward the bottom of the window in ripples. Simon turns the knob, and they step inside the office, illuminated by low desk lights. The space is lined with three different desks shoved against the walls. A large leather office chair takes the space in the middle of the desks, for easy accessibility. The amount of clutter overtaking the desks astounds Clary, who’s rather neat by nature: mountains of documents and files, recipe notes written in scrawling calligraphy, jars of unopened spices, boxes exploding with bubble wrap, scattered pens and various mugs. A laptop, sleek and shiny, is propped on a stack of cookbooks, opposite a large boxy computer that could’ve walked out of Clary’s childhood.

Simon leans over the mess, sweeping a multicolored silken scarf off the old keyboard and clocking himself in, before doing the same for Clary.

“Super easy to clock in,” he says, turning back to face her, “just find your name and type in your birthday.”

The office door bangs open dramatically, making Clary jump out of her skin. A man walks in, tall and lithe, jet black hair spiked high on his head and rings glittering on his fingers. A gentle smirk dances on his face, and he’s dressed in the same chef’s coat as the rest of the kitchen staff, with the added exception of shimmering thread woven throughout the coat.

“Hey, Magnus,” Simon says, awkwardly gesturing to Clary behind him. “This is my best friend Clary, our new host. Clary, this is our head chef Magnus.”

Magnus holds out his hand; the bracelets stacked on his wrist clang together as he moves. Clary’s mildly impressed with how perfectly accessorized he is.

“Pleasure,” he says, a vague, lilting accent dressing up his words. “Welcome aboard, biscuit.”

She shakes his hand, stunned into silence. Magnus doesn’t seem to mind– if anything, he seems used to that reaction– and grabs the scarf from the desk, tying it around his head to keep his hair back.

“Sherman,” he says, adjusting the knot of the head scarf. “Tell Jace if he sends back one more wagyu burger today because he forgot to put in the temp, I’ll wagyu him.”

It takes Clary a moment to realize he’s talking to Simon.

“Still not speaking?” Simon asks.

“Nope,” Magnus says, enunciating the ‘p’ with a loud pop. “Yesterday was unforgivable. Five burgers. FIVE. Raphael almost threw a plate at him.”

“I wish he had,” Simon mutters to himself.

Clary raises her eyebrows at him. Magnus grabs a black, sparkling notebook from behind the laptop and pats Clary’s head as he breezes by.

“Good luck, gingersnap,” he says out the door. “Don’t forget, Simone!”

“Well, that was almost right,” Simon says with a good-natured smirk.

That’s the thing about Simon. Nothing seems to faze him, like water off a duck’s back.

“Alright, Fray,” Simon says. “Let’s put you to work.”

 

* * * *

 

Most people would say that irritation is Alexander Lightwood’s default setting. Those who truly know him, however, know the difference between normal, surly Alec and irate, pissed off Alec.

Today, he’s the latter.

He tries not the let work take over his life– he really does. To be fair, he doesn’t have much of a life to speak of beyond work, but the point still stands.

Unfortunately, when your parents/bosses are going through a nasty divorce, which takes over every single aspect of you and your siblings’ lives because nothing about your damn family is quiet or discreet, suddenly your attention is inundated with wine orders and staffing and reps and catering… all while steadfastly trying to avoid the splintering marriage infecting everything you do.

Alec pauses in stocking the bar and grimaces down at his phone, seeing the flood of passive aggressive texts from his mother. He slams the phone down on the bar top and puts his head in his hands, massaging his weary temples.

“Jace!” he calls.

He peeks through his fingers to see his best friend and adoptive brother bound toward him, sliding behind the bar with grace and sidling up to Alec. He leans against the counter, a picture of ease, his golden hair curling over his forehead in that just-rolled-out-of-bed surfer boy way, eyes shining.

His cheer only irritates Alec more.

He passes his phone over wordlessly, watching Jace’s expression morph into disdain as he reads. He wrinkles his nose.

“So, I take it the meeting didn’t go very well,” Jace says with a snort, handing Alec his phone back.

“That’s an understatement.”

Alec sighs, leaning his hips flush against the counter. He reaches up subconsciously toward his ear, fiddling with the small silver arrow charm dangling from the lobe.

“At this point, it’s just constant fighting over Max and the restaurant,” Alec says, frowning, eyeing Simon carrying the host sign to the door, the little redhead girl following at his heels. Jace watches the pair curiously, eyes trained on the redhead– Clara? Cora? Alec can’t remember for the life of him– with interest.

“Poor kid,” Jace says of their baby brother, still watching her and Simon set up the host station. “This can’t be good for him, witnessing all this fighting. We should just adopt him.”

Alec raises an eyebrow. “He’s already our brother.”

“Yeah, but if we adopt him then he won’t have to boomerang between Maryse and Robert, which I think everyone can agree is not good for his health and development. Besides, you know we’d be kickass parents.”

“I’m not going to be Max’s new dad, parenting you is enough work.”

Jace gasps dramatically. “You impugn my honor, sir. I’m wounded. Wounded!”

Alec rolls his eyes. “Go impugn yourself,” he says, tugging on his earring again as he looks out over the hustle of the restaurant opening.

Jace turns away from the host station, looking at Alec. His eyes track Alec’s fingers, toying with the charm, and when Alec glances back at Jace, he’s met with a knowing grin that Alec is tempted to slap off his face.

“What?” Alec asks, annoyed.

“Nothing,” Jace says, still grinning. “I like the jewelry. Where’d you get it?”

Alec’s hand jerks away from the earring like its burned him, and glares venomously at Jace.

“Shut up,” he snarls.

Jace holds his hands up in surrender.

“What? I’m just admiring,” he says, all innocence. “It’s a good look for you. You should wear it more often– oh wait, that’s right, you’ve been wearing it every day since your birthday.”

Alec rolls his eyes so hard he’s somewhat concerned they might fall out of his head.

“It’s easier to just leave it in,” he says, refusing to meet Jace’s eyes.

Jace’s grin turns lecherous.

“Sure that’s all you wanna _leave in_?” Jace says.

Alec hits him with a check presenter.

“Can you shut up?” he hisses, eyes darting around. “We’re at work!”

Jace snorts. “Yeah because _no one_ knows about the raging hard on Magnus has for you. I just gotta ask– why didn’t he get me a birthday present? Maybe I want some jewelry too.”

Alec hits him again, this time over his head, the leather of the check presenter making a violent smacking sound.

“Can you ask him where he got it at least? I wanna match,” Jace laughs, dancing away when Alec lunges at him.

Jace is saved from strangulation by a melodic voice ringing out from the kitchen doors.

“Alexander!”

 _Magnus_.

Jace waggles his eyebrows at Alec, swinging around the bar and striding over to the host station before Alec can figure out what to throw at him. He heaves a long suffering sigh and turns around to see Magnus striding toward the bar. His usual head scarf, today a deep maroon with multicolored designs, is tied around his head and small gold hoops glint in his ears. Gold eyeliner flicks out in a sharp wing around his eyes, making them appear cat-like and complimenting his warm brown skin. He’s stunning, as usual, and Alec has to fight to not seem noticeably affected by him.

“Yeah?” Alec says as Magnus approaches, eyes on his forehead because it’s the safest place for him to look.

“I’m short a box of sherry,” Magnus says, leaning against the bar and folding his arms on top of it. “Have you done the liquor order yet?”

Work. He wants to talk work. This, Alec can do. He meets Magnus’ eyes– they’re glittering, a kaleidoscope of green and yellow that sucks him in a little too deep.

“Uh, no,” Alec says, trying to focus. “I mean, I’m doing it now.”

He holds up the notebook next to him as proof, littered with his illegible scrawl.

“I’ll put on another box and get them to credit it,” Alec says, all business.

Magnus cocks his head to the side, eyes fixated on the tattoo on Alec’s neck, peeking out from the stiff collar of his black button down. Alec had never thought much about tattoos until Jace came home on his eighteenth birthday with his first one, an elegant falcon stretching across his shoulder. Maryse and Robert had both freaked, screaming at Jace for how he would be presenting himself at the restaurant. Alec and Isabelle, Alec and Jace’s sister, loved it. Alec remembers tracing it every chance he could with his eyes, back when he was still closeted and hating himself, when Jace stirred up someting more than just brotherly affection. He’d been fascinated by the dark lines racing through Jace’s golden skin, running his fingers over his own pale forearms at night and wondering what it would look like on him.

He came out to his parents soon after that, followed by his first tattoo to erase the sting of his parents’ rejection. His tattoos are his response to pain, and he’s been getting at least one a year, if not more, ever since.

Magnus is still staring at his neck and Alec’s face heats up like a stove top.

“I bet Sebastian stole it,” Magnus jokes– sort of. Sebastian, their closing prep cook/dishwasher. Alec has it on good authority that he’s pilfering spices; the only reason Magnus hasn’t fire him is because he’s their fastest dishwasher. Alec can’t stand the guy, and almost hopes Sebastian actually did steal the sherry so Magnus stops dancing around letting him go.

“Wouldn’t shock me,” Alec says, glancing down at the notebook and scribbling a case of sherry on the ordering chart.

Magnus watches him; Alec fidgets under his gaze and looks back up.

“Anything else?” he asks, desperate for Magnus to go back into the kitchen so he can breathe normally again.

Magnus shakes his head. “Nope,” he says with a coy grin. “Just looking.”

Alec’s cheeks grow so hot eggs could fry on them. He sputters, feeling clumsy, clearing his throat and shuffling his feet. Magnus laughs, like the tinkling of chimes, pushing himself up from his lazy slouch over the bar. He winks at Alec.

“Thanks, darling. Back to the dungeon I go,” he sings, spinning on his heels and sashaying back toward the kitchen’s double doors.

Alec watches him go, frozen, eyes hypnotized by Magnus’ hips swinging back and forth.

 _Goddamnit_.

His phone buzzes, snapping Alec out of his stupor shamefacedly. He shakes his head like he’s getting rid of a fly and glances down at the screen.

**MOM: I’m getting Max and coming in for lunch. I cannot be around your father. Reserve me a table and get out the merlot I like. Tell Magnus I’m not doing carbs, I want the spaghetti squash in place of the pasta in the bolognese. Did the Sonoma rep call yet? I need you to do payroll I won’t be able to this week with all these damn meetings, your father is impossible.**

Alec’s head falls on the bar in despair. How he’s going to get through tonight, he has no idea.

He lifts his head up like it’s an anvil and sighs, rolling his neck and relishing in the crack of his joints.

“Alright, it’s showtime,” he calls, looking toward Simon and nodding at him to flip the sign. “Let’s open.”


	2. Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on tumblr @consulalexander and scream about all things Shadowhunters/TSC with me!

**Part Two**

 

_“If anything is good for pounding humility into you permanently, it’s the restaurant business.”_

_\- Anthony Bourdain_

“It’s not as scary as it looks,” Simon is saying as Clary steps behind the host podium to peek at the iPad resting there. He has a map of the restaurant pulled up, numbers labeling each table and bar seat. The map is divided into five sections: BAR, A, B, C, D.

Simon taps on the BAR section, the screen illuminating under his touch and a keyboard popping up.

“I usually type in the name of whoever is covering the section for the shift, to make things easier,” he explains, typing ALEC in bold letters under BAR. “It’ll say on the schedule if you don’t know off hand, but you’ll pick up which section is which pretty quickly.”

He types JACE under A, the section closest to the host station; B is MAIA, off to the right; C is LYDIA, to the left; and D is HELEN, up on the rise at the back of the restaurant.

When he’s finished, Simon hands her the iPad.

“Remember in sophomore year when we pulled an all nighter studying for our biology final?”

Clary smiles at the memory. “I kept throwing popcorn at your head, you started falling asleep every time we hit the function of the mitochondria.”

“Still don’t know it, never gonna,” Simon says solemnly.

“Why do you ask?”

He points to the screen. “Study that harder.”

Clary audibly gulps, staring down at the diagram in her hands.

“Make sure to give me all the cool tables, new girl,” a low voice says at her shoulder.

Clary whips around in surprise, Simon rolling his eyes at the intruder.

“My name is Clary,” she corrects, narrowing her eyes as she stands face to face with the most beautiful person she’s ever seen. Everything about him screams gold and angels to the high heavens; Clary’s fingers itch to paint him, gliding in the air, intricate gilded wings protruding from his back.

“Hi, Clary,” he says with a toothy grin, completely ignoring Simon’s obvious annoyance next to her.

“This is Jace,” Simon says, grimacing. “Don’t feel special, he flirts with everything with a pulse.”

“Incorrect,” Jace says, holding up a finger in protest. “I don’t flirt with you.”

“Thank God for small miracles.”

Jace pretends not to hear him.

“It’s nice to meet you, Clary,” he says, still grinning, and she is definitely _not_ swooning, not at all. “I look forward to working with you.”

“Thanks, it’s nice to meet you too,” Clary answers, breathless.

“Jace!” a girl calls from the back, halo of brown curls around her head and struggling to carry a massive dish rack of glass carafes. “Stop dicking around and help me with this!”

“Duty calls,” Jace says, flexing obnoxiously and making Clary laugh despite herself. He sprints over to the girl, his grace matching a gazelle in stride.

Clary stares after him for too long—when she looks back at Simon, he’s glowering at her.

“What?” she asks.

“Don’t you fall for his bullshit too,” Simon mutters darkly.

Clary rolls her eyes. “What do you take me for, Lewis? I’m not going to throw myself at every guy that looks my way. Even if they are the hottest man I’ve ever seen.”

Simon groans and hits his forehead on the podium.

“Don’t tell him that!” he begs. “His ego is through the roof already!”

At that moment, Alec shouts from the bar that they’re ready to open. On cue, Simon flicks on the open sign in the window, and the floodgates burst.

“They line up outside,” Simon whispers to her as Clary looks at the crowd of people entering in bewilderment.

She doesn’t have time to mull over her surprise; there's too much she suddenly needs to pay attention to. She stands slightly behind Simon, watching him handle each guest with ease and what Clary calls his patented nerd charm.

The movement of the restaurant draws her in with its intoxicating hum of energy. She’s only a shadow, Simon doing all the talking, so she’s free to watch Alec mixing cocktails with finite precision, the tinkle of Lydia’s laugh at a joke from a customer ( _guest_ , her mind supplies in a voice eerily similar to Maryse Lightwood), Jace walking back and forth between the kitchen and his tables, the dim lights glinting off his hair like strips of hammered gold. She’s struck by his poise, the fluidity in how he moves between tables, a soft, playful smile ever present on his lips. He stacks plates up his arms effortlessly, three or four at a time; balances clusters of drinks in his hands, the crystalline glasses casting rainbow fractals on the walls; uncorks wine or champagne bottles with an airy flourish.

Clary wonders if she’ll ever be as comfortable as Jace is with this place—with its stately, Parthenon-like pillars and plush carpets and exclusive clientele that drop fifty or more dollars on a specially crafted red without a second thought.

She’s always envied those people, the ones that can afford this escape. She’s never known that life, but she knows the world of the poor like her own heartbeat. After her father left, taking not only his stable income but their trust along with him, Clary got used to the feast or famine life of having an artist for a mother. If Jocelyn made a good sale, they were on top of the world. But other times, the biting air of their apartment when the gas was shut off or the lack of hot water when their water heater broke and they had no money to fix it, was just another thing Clary had to learn to live with.

Luke helps some, now that he’s in the picture, but there’s only so much a bookstore owner can provide. Simon brings over takeout often enough that it somewhat relieves the burden of the grocery bill, and Clary leaves out a handful of twenties when she’s able for her mother to stumble across, since Jocelyn refuses to let Clary help with the bills.

“I’m the mom,” she often says, carding her hands through Clary’s fiery curls. “You’re the kid. I protect _you_ , not the other way around.”

Clary believes they can protect each other, though, now that she has this job. Maybe Alec is right, maybe a monkey can be a hostess, but the money is great according to Simon and she’s tired of watching her mother suffer because of her father’s choice.

 _She’s_ tired of suffering. She’s ready to escape—maybe she has more in common with these people than she thought, believing the gateway to happiness starts with a perfect plate of risotto in a fancy bistro that radiates warmth and vibrance.

“Clary… yo, Clary… Fray!”

Simon’s hand is batting the air in front of her face when she snaps back to reality.

“Hi, hey, sorry,” Clary says, thanking her lucky stars that it’s Simon who’s training her. Anyone else—one black haired, surly bartender in particular immediately comes to mind—would’ve been pissed at her for zoning out like that.

Not Simon. He scrutinizes her face worriedly.

“You good?” he asks.

Clary nods her head too fast. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

He doesn’t have time to press her further as another guest walks up to the podium. Simon has her take the reins on this one, at her shoulder like a guardian angel, ready to step in at a moment’s notice. Heavy, leatherbound menus in her grip, she guides the couple to a table in Helen’s section. Helen is blonde and looks like a pixie, with a sweet smile and delicate fierceness. It doesn't take much for Clary to decide that she likes her.

Clary learns quickly that repetition is the name of the game: the same cheerful greeting, the slow walk to the table, allowing the guests to drink in the ambiance around them, the description of the menu, wine list, and specials. She’s on auto pilot, following Simon’s instructions to the letter to become the perfect robot.

The monotony breaks with the arrival of Maryse Lightwood, a young boy and a stunning, beautiful girl about her age in tow. The girl and boy look just like Alec, the only obvious difference being their eyes—a deep, dark brown in striking contrast to the shocking blue of Alec’s.

The Lightwood genes are seriously unfair.

“Hello, Maryse,” Simon says stiffly, back ramrod straight.

“Simon,” Maryse says with a brusque nod, turning her head to Clary. “Clary, how are you faring? Getting settled?”

From anyone else, that would seem like genuine concern. From Maryse Lightwood, it drips in disapproval.

“I’m okay, Simon’s a good trainer,” Clary says loyally, heart pounding like a jackhammer under Maryse’s judgmental gaze.

“Mom, relax, we’re here to eat, not scare everyone,” the girls says, rolling her eyes. She smiles wide at Clary, all pearly teeth.

“I’m Isabelle,” she says.

Clary glances over at Simon, wondering if she’s supposed to like this girl or not, but he’s staring at Isabelle with a glazed look in his eye that Clary can’t blame him for. She gets the feeling Isabelle just has that effect on people.

“Nice to meet you, Isabelle,” Clary says, elbowing Simon surreptitiously in the side. Simon grunts, but the hazy look dissipates.

“Um, usual table Maryse?”

Maryse nods, pushing the younger boy forward. He’s clutching a book to his chest; Clary makes out the intricate Japanese art on the cover and gives the boy a soft smile. He grins, shy, looking down at his shoes.

“Take Max to the table, please, and let Magnus know I’m here.”

She strides off to the bar without a second glance, the clacking of her heels dulled to a soft thud on the carpet. Isabelle rolls her eyes again, ruffling Max’s hair before trailing her mother.

Clary and Simon look at each other, communicating without words in the way only best friends can, their looks screaming _that was scary as shit_.

“Let’s get you to your seat, kiddo,” Clary says, breaking the silence. She ushers Max behind Simon, letting him talk her ear off about the manga in his hands as they follow Simon to a cozy table in the corner of Jace’s section, the restaurant a steady heartbeat around her.

 

* * *

“Alexander.”

Alec’s shoulders tense in the midst of making a manhattan. He drops the bourbon cherry into the martini glass and sighs, long-suffering, turning around. He puts the drink in Jace’s pick up station, the paper ticket clinging to the damp bottom of the glass, and says, “mother.”

Maryse leans against the glossy bar, clasping her immaculate manicured hands together. She’s pure sleek elegance, commanding attention wherever she is with her austere beauty. The silver cuff on her wrist gleams like armor, and she rests her ink black Louis Vuitton bag on top of the counter like she’s displaying a trophy.

“Did you call the rep like I asked?” Maryse says by way of greeting.

“Sonoma? Yeah, we’re getting a new cab-merlot blend and a chardonnay,” Alec says, pouring a glass of Maryse’s favorite merlot—Emmelo merlot from Napa—and handing it to her.

“And what about payroll?”

“Doing it tomorrow. Where’s Max?”

“At the table. How is it tonight?”

“ _Mom_ , good lord, can we cut the shop talk for like two seconds?” Isabelle appears at Maryse’s shoulder, flipping back her curtain of dark hair and giving her brother a wink, eyes sparkling.

Alec’s shoulders ease into relaxation, though he still stands straight as an arrow.

“Tequila and soda, big brother,” Isabelle says, batting her eyelashes.

Alec swipes a rocks glass and pours the tequila a bit more generously than he would for an ordinary guest, ice creating a symphony of sound as the cubes drop into the glass and are topped with a splash of soda. He crushes a lime into the drink, juice sticky on the pads of his fingers, and hands it to her.

“We’re going out after close, right?” Isabelle asks, ignoring the appalled look their mother flicks her way.

“You’d better not, you have orders tomorrow and maintenance is coming to check the kitchen elements,” Maryse warns.

Alec bristles, pouring a pinot grigio for a ticket to stop himself from lashing out. Disappointment radiates off his mother in waves, crawling under his skin like burrowing spiders.

“Ma, he’s allowed to have fun sometimes,” Isabelle says, taking a long sip of her drink.

Maryse wrinkles her nose, choosing to ignore her comment and instead remarks, “I need someone to watch Max Thursday. I have a meeting with my lawyer and another one with an investor and your father is too busy seeing that homewrecker to bother caring about his son.”

“Mom!” Alec snaps, scandalized. “Christ, did you even _ask_ Dad if he could take Max?”

Isabelle stares at her brother like he’s grown another head.

“Are you _defending_ him?” she asks, incredulous.

“Of course not!” Alec argues.

Despite the struggles he has with their mother, their father having an affair isn’t something she, or anyone else, deserves. Besides—after the things his father said to him, once upon a time in that office full of fear and ignorance, his parents as imposing as the pillars in the entryway of the restaurant—he’s not inclined to defend Robert Lightwood ever again anyway.

“I’m just saying, he’s still Max’s dad, regardless of how we all feel,” Alec continues as he begins prepping a moscow mule, pointedly avoiding meeting Maryse’s eyes. “Maybe let him judge Dad for himself instead of taking that decision away?”

“Max is only eleven,” Maryse practically spits. “He doesn’t understand enough to have an opinion.”

“He’s smarter than you think, Mom,” Alec says, voice sharp.

Jace appears in that moment, grabbing his drink off the bar and sliding over to the Lightwood dominated end of the counter.

“Hey, Ma,” Jace murmurs, kissing her on the cheek.

Alec and Isabelle roll their eyes simultaneously at the way Maryse’s face lights up.

“Hello, dear, I had Simon pop us in your section,” Maryse says, beaming like she wasn’t snapping at her eldest son mere moments ago.

“Great,” Jace says. “I overheard you need someone to watch Max? I’m off Thursday, I’ll do it.”

Isabelle muffles the words “kiss ass” in a cough.

“Oh, that would be wonderful, thank you Jace!” Maryse hooks her bag on her arm and picks up her wine glass.

“I’ll bring him over around one, he has early release from school,” she says, straightening her pencil skirt in preparation for the walk to her table.

She glances back at Alec; her eyes are fixated on the space below his left ear, and it takes him a second to realize she’s staring at his earring. Her mouth curls.

“You shouldn’t be wearing that while you’re working,” she says, voice rough. “It’s unprofessional, you look like you’re slinging drinks in Vegas.”

_In other words, take it out you look too gay._

Maryse turns on her heel and strides toward her table. Alec debates flinging the glass in his hand at the wall.

Isabelle and Jace exchange a look.

“Alec,” Jace says lowly, “don’t listen to her shit. You know this divorce stuff and the custody battle has her all worked up.”

“Yeah, I know.” Alec doesn’t have the heart to mention that their mother’s hostile attitude toward him began long before she found out about Robert’s infidelity.

Isabelle grabs Alec’s hand briefly, giving it a tight squeeze.

“Tonight, yeah?” she whispers. “Pandemonium? Let’s forget about this, okay? Just for tonight.”

Alec gives her an unconvincing smile.

“Okay,” he says, because he’ll never win an argument against Isabelle.

Jace lets out a whoop, startling the bar patrons next to him. Alec spares them an apologetic glance.

“Alright! I’ll spread the word,” Jace says, balancing a couple more drinks on his tray before winking and walking back toward his section.

Isabelle grabs her drink and gives Alec a look that screams wizened beyond her years.

“Relax,” she says. “Mom doesn’t matter tonight.”

 _She always matters_ , Alec thinks, but he won’t dare say it aloud.

He nods at Isabelle as she goes to join their mother and younger brother, desperately wanting her to be right, but knowing deep down that she isn’t.

 

* * *

“Pick up, table ten!”

“ _Ay, Dios,_ where are those goddamn strawberries?”

“Maybe in the walk in where they were the last time you asked that, _pinche idiota._ ”

 _C_ _rash._ “Son of a bitch!”

“Plates don’t grow on trees, Jordan!”

“Sorry, chef!”

Magnus groans, voice vibrating off the walls, putting his hands to his head.

“I swear to all that is holy, Bat, if I have to listen to one more whining emo rock song I’m going to set something on fire, preferably your head. Change. The. Playlist. Now.”

He’s been listening to the angst-ridden screaming of AFI for what feels like forever with a pounding headache, and he’s about two seconds from snapping.

Magnus’ headache erupts tenfold when Simon pokes his head in with an apologetic expression.

“The Wicked Witch has landed,” he says wryly.

Magnus contemplates stabbing himself with his chef’s knife.

“Raphael!” he barks to his sous chef, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and middle finger. “Get the squash going before the Queen of Hearts chops off your head!”

Raphael’s lips quirk slightly as the corners—his version of laughter.

“Only _my_ head?” he says, sarcasm dripping from his tongue like honey.

“She wouldn’t dare touch mine, she wouldn’t have a restaurant without me.”

It’s a fact Maryse is loathe to admit, but in Magnus’ opinion (and The New Yorker’s, and the Times, and pretty much any other notable food-related publication and reviewer—Magnus is not one to shoot down praise) he’s the reason The Institute is as prosperous as it is. His gifts as a chef are well known across the culinary world, in New York and beyond; he’s been called innovative, fresh, remarkable—once, notably, _orgasmic—_ in the kitchen. He’s been asked more times than he can count why he doesn’t open his own restaurant—the truth is, the work involved with owning a restaurant sounds incredibly unsavory to Magnus. At The Institute, he’s paid astronomically well and has full control of the kitchen, the menu and his staff—the only things he really cares about. He has almost everything here.

The catch? The dagger in his side that is Maryse Lightwood.

Magnus looks back down at the notebook he’s been scribbling notes for next week’s specials in. His vision blurs over, his delicate calligraphy swimming on the page.

The kitchen doors bang open, and Magnus glances up, finding Alec with his eyes closed, his lanky body sinking into the wall.

And then there’s that—the _other_ reason Magnus won’t leave The Institute. Alexander Gideon Lightwood, heir to the Lightwood restaurant empire.

Magnus remembers when he was first hired; he’d gone to the office to meet with Maryse and had found Alec there with her, standing at attention with a soldier’s rigidity. It was like whatever deities that existed in the universe had taken Magnus’ fantasies of the perfect human and carved him from his head, like Athena springing from Zeus’ mind.

He’s always been partial to black hair and blue eyes—the artistry of contrast, he thinks—but Alec’s combination in particular is jarring; hair the color of midnight and the startling enigma of his pale eyes that change like the seas, from calm blue to stormy gray.

He’s definitely waxed poetic while inebriated about those eyes on more than one occasion to his best friends, Ragnor and Catarina.

It isn’t just Alec’s physique that strikes him— _though the things he’d do if allowed._ He’s a perpetual grump to the naked eye, but Magnus sees the few and far between moments when Alec lets go, like beacons of light, and he’s desperate to know more. He wants to know everything about Alexander Lightwood. If only he’d let him.

Magnus watches him, raising an eyebrow.

“Okay over there?” he calls.

Alec’s eyes snap open and he looks at Magnus warily.

“Fine, just…” He scrambles for the right words.

“Hiding from your mother?” Magnus supplies helpfully.

Alec’s face softens in relief.

“Yeah,” he says. “Something like that.”

Magnus tucks his pen behind his ear. “You and Isabelle are remarkably well adjusted for having such a tyrant of a mother.”

Alec barks out a laugh, surprising even himself in its intensity.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he says.

That’s another reason Magnus is so enamored—someone who understands what it’s like to have _their_ parents—the ones that break their children’s hearts, sometimes without even trying.

Not that Alec knows this about him.

Alec clears his throat, running his fingers through his dark hair and mussing it up even more. It’s disgustingly endearing and Magnus has to look away before he starts gushing.

“Uh, Izzy wants to go out tonight,” Alec says, voice rough like he doesn’t quite want to be speaking but is forced to. “Pandemonium. If you want to come. Or, er… the rest of the kitchen, obviously. You’re all invited. Not just you. Though you should come if… if you want.”

He’s stumbling over his words, rambling a mile a minute and Magnus fights the urge to laugh because he’s just so damn _cute_ sometimes, though Magnus is beyond sure that Alec would object to the use of that particular adjective.

“I may swing by, I owe Isabelle a drink anyway,” Magnus says with a smile, manicured fingers drumming on the cover of his notebook.

Alec’s head cocks to the side, evidently hearing something coming from outside the kitchen. He sighs, heavy, and pushes up from the wall, shoving back his hair again. Jordan rushes by him, a whirl of plates, and Raphael swears quietly in Spanish next to Magnus when he spills a soy sauce side on the ground.

Alec nods once at Magnus, quick and abrupt, like a soldier confirming his assent at a general, and then he’s gone back through the doors and back into the front of house chaos.

He hears Ragnor’s voice in his head now, loud and British and irritating.

_Y_ _ou’re in trouble now, Magnus._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, life happened and vacation with no WiFi happened! I promise I'll get to a more regular posting schedule.
> 
> For those who are curious, my models are the Shadowhunters cast because they're all damn pretty. With the exception being Matthew Daddario with blue eyes instead of hazel. ;)
> 
> Thanks for the support! I own no part of this beyond the idea that sprung from my brain.


	3. Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's not talk about 3x18 and pretend everything is okay with a little fluff, shall we? Don't forget to follow me on Tumblr, @consulalexander, where I scream and cry and occasionally post about my fic.

**Part Three**

_“I’m like a menu at an expensive restaurant; you can look at me, but you can’t afford me.”_

_\- Anna Kournikova_

Pandemonium is the exact opposite of The Institute. It's loud and grimy; neon lights bouncing off the walls and assaulting the eyes; cheap drinks in sticky glasses; black light paint dripping on the black floor and walls; bodies pressed against each other in the dark and inhibitions filling the air like smoke.

The differences are exactly why it’s one of Isabelle’s favorite places in the world.

She’d stuck around the restaurant after her mother and Max had finished a terse, silent meal, Max fidgeting impatiently in his seat and Isabelle casting side-eyed glares at Maryse, who’d barely said a word except whenever Jace came around to talk or take their order. After Maryse and Max had left, stopping to say a quick few words to Alec that had him shaking his head and muttering angrily to himself after they walked out the front doors, Isabelle sat at the bar ordering a few more rounds of tequila sodas and bothering everyone. She’d helped them close, doing the bar’s dishes and sweeping, and coaxed the front of house staff into a round of shots before they’d left. Isabelle had sat on top of the bar, everyone surrounding her like a queen holding court, and she’d thought to herself, _this, this is who I am, this is my legacy here._

She didn’t know at the time whether to be happy or sad about it.

Now, the entirety of The Institute’s closing staff from the night dominates a corner of the club, glasses of varying sizes and contents littering the low black table. Simon sits in the booth with the new girl, Clary, and Jace on her other side, his face set into that sweet, charming smile that gets him everything he wants. She’s intimate with its power, after all these years, and Isabelle gazes at him a few beats longer in fondness.

Helen's propped on one of the arms of the booth, drink in hand, Aline—Isabelle’s cousin and Helen’s girlfriend—standing between her legs and laughing at something Helen whispers in her ear. Maia, Lydia and Magnus are in the crowd dancing; Jordan, Bat, and Raphael at the bar getting everyone another round. The bass is alive and thumping in Isabelle’s veins, and she wants to throw her hands in the air, mixing them with the sweat soaked, pulsing energy of the club and give herself over to the comfort this world provides her.

Something stops her, though, and that something is her brother in the corner, almost blending in to the black background with his equally dark clothing and black hair. The only thing that gives him away is the milky white of his skin, almost translucent in the neon lights.

He holds what looks like whiskey in his hand, and is staring off in the distance, arms crossed over his chest and leaning against the wall. Isabelle follows his gaze, odd and pensive, and sees Magnus at the other end, moving his body like a serpent under a charmer’s spell, like he’s a part of the music. Isabelle has to admit that, objectively, Magnus looks good. Great even, in that lighting, colors casting a holographic glow onto his caramel skin and catching the reflects of glitter in his spiky hair.

There’s something painful in Alec’s gaze, though, as he watches him dance, and it wrenches Isabelle’s heart—a sensation she’s been feeling off and on all night, seeing him react to their mother’s constant disapproval.

_It’s like a million little papercuts every day_ , he’d told her once.

She glances back toward the bar, where Raphael is leaning against the counter, neck craned as he says something to Jordan across Bat, and thinks she might know something about what that feels like.

Isabelle pushes her sinking heart to the side and takes a long sip of her tequila soda, deciding she needs to take care of herself for a minute before she plays therapist the rest of the night. She tosses back her drink like a savage, melted ice dripping down her chin, and floats to the dance floor.

She struts over to Magnus and the girls, her hips swaying back and forth to the beat, hands coming up to grasp the air as she walks. _If you want to get somewhere in a crowd, dance through it._ She cuts through the bodies like butter until she’s standing directly behind Magnus.

She taps his shoulder lightly, and he turns around, fluid.

“Was wondering when you’d grace us with your presence out here,” Magnus says with a coy grin.

Isabelle laughs, lowering her lashes and allowing his appreciative gaze to wash over her body in tingling heatwaves. They dance together for a few beats wordlessly, embracing the rhythm thrumming around them and letting their bodies talk instead.

She remembers who’s watching a few moments later and her eyes open, meeting Magnus’, hints of green reflecting in the lights.

“How do you feel about my brother?” she asks, point blank, because Isabelle is anything but subtle. She doesn’t find much use in beating around the bush-- it's much easier to slice your way right through it. Preferably with a rather large machete.

“You have a lot of them to choose from, my dear,” Magnus says, eyes twinkling.

He grabs her hand and twirls her, grasping her waist and dipping her down toward the floor before she can think to breathe again.

She rolls her eyes as he lifts her back up, spinning away from him.

“You know exactly which one I’m talking about.”

She sidles back up to Magnus, draping her arms over his shoulders—no mean feat normally, as he’s quite tall, but her towering heels give her an advantage—and moving her hips in time with his, fixing him with a heavy stare.

Magnus sighs, hands settling mechanically on her waist.

“And I think you know _exactly_ how I feel about him,” he retorts, leading her into a quick, jazzy two-step back and forth.

He spins Isabelle again, into his chest and back out. She kicks out lightly as she lands the turn before releasing his hand and sashaying back in front of him. She lifts her hands to the ceiling and thrusts her hips, gentle, bending her knees and shimmying down. She’s aware of the eyes on her, following her every move, and she drinks it up like water.

“I think I need to hear you say it,” Isabelle yells over the bass.

Magnus sighs, twisting his hands into the air and tossing his head back like he’s howling at the moon.

“What do you want me to say, Isabelle?” Magnus says with a huff. “Your brother is stunning and wonderful and I would climb him like a tree.”

Isabelle grins, teeth flashing in the neon lights.

“Great,” she says, swaying back and forth as the song changes.

Magnus raises an eyebrow, settling his hands back on her waist as they move to the music synchronously, their shared rhythm instinctive.

“Why do you ask?”

Isabelle glances over her shoulder toward Alec, his pale eyes locked on them moving back and forth. His face is hard, reminding Isabelle of whenever he looks at their parents, like his walls are slamming up with shattering intensity. 

“You should try harder,” Isabelle says.

Magnus stops dancing, hands going slack on Isabelle’s waist, and looks her dead in the eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Isabelle sighs dramatically. She grabs Magnus’ hand and pulls him from the dance floor, dragging him over to the other end of the bar, as far away from the rest of the kitchen (and, more importantly, Raphael) staff as possible. She signals the bartender for two tequila shots and leans against the counter. Magnus tilts his head down at her.

“Well?” he prompts.

Isabelle grabs the shots off the counter and hands one to Magnus.

“Magnus, you’ve known my brother for two years now, and have been obsessing over him for just as long,” Isabelle says. “You should know by now that my brother is completely useless when it comes to his love life, or lack thereof. You need to push him.”

Magnus flicks a strand of hair off his forehead, dyed purple to match the silk shirt he wears.

“Izzy, if I were any more obvious I would have heart eyes popping out of my skull like a goddamn Looney Toon,” Magnus says.

“Have you actually asked him out?”

Magnus is silent; Isabelle smirks at him knowingly.

“Magnus,” she says, slow so he won’t miss a word. “Alec likes you. Even if he won’t admit it, because he’s Alec and emotional suppression is his strong suit. But he won’t make the first move. He’s not like me or Jace—he doesn’t exactly have what we call 'game'.”

Magnus snorts, turning his head to side-eye the corner Alec is standing in across the club. His gaze softens, a small smile playing at his lips. It’s the most tender Isabelle has seen Magnus look, and she looks out the corner of her eye toward where she knows Raphael is standing.

If Magnus is loud, commanding attention from every inch of the club, Raphael is the polar opposite, as if he’s fighting to not be noticed. But Isabelle notices—in fact, he’s all she sees, and each moment she stands there something splinters inside her, knowing he’s so close yet forever just out of reach.

He lifts his head, aware she’s watching him, and when their eyes meet, electricity whips through Isabelle’s spine like a lightening strike on a tree. She’s falling into his eyes, huge and brown and safe, two large security blankets enveloping and warming her from head to toe.

She snaps out of it when she remembers the _why_ of it all. Why things are the way they are between them.

Isabelle turns away before she gets sucked in too deep, and raises the shot of tequila like she isn’t spiraling.

“You have to fight for what you want, Magnus,” she says sagely, as if Magnus isn’t almost ten years older than her. “You want my brother. My brother wants you, he’s just an idiot. So go make things a little easier for both of you, hmm?”

Magnus snorts again, but he’s smiling and holds out his own shot, clinking it delicately against hers. He closes his eyes and tosses it back, Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat and pulling his lips off the glass with a loud gasp. His eyes open, pupils blown a little wider against his green-gold irises.

“With your blessing, of course,” Magnus sweet talks, placing his used glass on the bar.

Isabelle shoves him forward, aggressive. “I already gave you my blessing, dipshit, now go make my brother stupidly happy, okay?”

Magnus winks and with a twitch of his hips, he’s gone into the fray.

 

* * *

 

“Number four is the best and I stand by my argument,” Simon says with conviction.

Jace, Clary, Helen, and Aline all groan in unison. Alec fights the urge to hurl his glass of whiskey into Simon’s face.

“They completely left out S.P.E.W.!” Aline shrieks, slamming her glass down on the table, its contents sloshing over the sides. “ _Completely_. And don’t you dare get me started on ‘HARRY DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIYAH!’.”

Helen’s eyes go wide in fear. “God, please don’t, I won’t be allowed to sleep for a week.”

“You’re seriously going to ignore the complete mastery that is the third movie?” Clary asks incredulously, mouth around the straw in her vodka cranberry. “The _backstory_ , Simon, all that Marauders stuff! You’re going to ignore _Hermione punching Malfoy_ right in the face?! That was true feminist cinema right there.”

“I totally agree,” Jace says emphatically.

Alec rolls his eyes. “By which you mean you just want to sleep with Clary.”

Clary turns the color of her hair and Jace glares daggers at Alec. He doesn’t care—the music is too loud and giving him a headache, the whiskey is terrible, and he’s been watching Magnus dance for the past hour growing increasingly frustrated in more ways than one.

Everything his mother said to him that night runs over repeatedly in his head, like a skipping record of self-loathing. He takes another sip of his drink, the whiskey setting his throat on fire, and he closes his eyes, relishing in it. He’s on his third drink and only vaguely buzzed—his height gives him the advantage when it comes to drinking, though with the amount of drinks he has to have to get properly drunk, his wallet probably disagrees—but it’s enough to make him a little unsteady on his feet as he slouches against the wall.

“Anyone want another round?” Helen asks to dispel the tension. A few hands raise and she heads off to the bar with Aline in tow.

While Clary and Simon continue their heated, inebriated debate, Jace waltzes over to Alec, swinging the beer in his hand. He leans on the wall space next to Alec, propping his foot up on the wall and rolling his head over to stare at him.

Alec sighs, irritable.

_"What,”_ he snaps.

Jace jerks back like he’s been slapped.

“Wo-ow, unfriendly,” Jace says, holding his hands up in surrender. “I was just going to ask you what you think of Clary.”

_That_ isn’t at all what Alec expects. He meets Jace’s eyes, jaw slacking slightly in surprise.

“You… want to know what I think of Clary?” Alec repeats.

Jace nods. “Yeah. Do you like her?”

Alec takes a sip of whiskey.

“I’ve worked with her for maybe ten hours, Jace,” Alec says, blunt. “I don’t like anybody after ten hours with them.”

Jace snorts into his beer pint and Alec pins him with a probing expression.

“Do _you_ like Clary?” he asks. “You know, like… well, like her?”

“Are you asking me if I _like-like_ Clary? What are we, ten?”

“You know what I mean.”

Jace casts his eyes downward, pensive, the corners of his mouth turned up softly. He’s a notorious flirt—Alec can’t even count on two hands how many times he’s accidentally walked in on Jace _somewhere_ with a girl. His relationships are faster than you can blink, his demeanor always the same: he flirts and drinks, brings them to bed, maybe goes on a couple dates, and then they mysteriously disappear from the roster.

He never asks if Alec _likes_ any of them.

Once, he would’ve said he hated every single one, seething with the sting of jealousy. He would’ve stood in a corner in a black cloud of sullen pessimism and rage, nails digging into his palms until he bled. He filled journals with dark, shitty poetry and wailed on punching bags hanging in the makeshift basement gym under the restaurant until his knuckles split. The Alec of two years ago had been so broken, so filled with pain and closing himself off from the world to hide it, so in love with his best friend and so uncomfortable with himself that he thought he was destined for a life of _not having._

Who is he now?

Still closed off. Still brooding. Just openly gay version.

He isn’t in love with Jace anymore (though that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have an unfortunate crush), much more readily accepting of any prospective Jace two-week stand. This, though… this shy smile of his, that’s new. Alec sighs, taking another drink and shrugging his shoulders, stiff in his leather jacket.

“I don’t know, Jace, I don’t want to stab her if that’s what you’re asking,” Alec tries. Jace glances up at him, the tiny grin still painted on his lips.

“Wow, that’s quite the compliment, coming from you,” Jace teases, kicking Alec in the shin lightly. He pauses, eyes widening as he stares off at something behind Alec.

Alec turns and cranes his neck, looking for whatever Jace is staring at. His body immobilizes, the glass of whiskey slippery in his hand. It falls to the ground, Jace letting out a shout as whiskey spills onto his boot and the glass rolls under the table. Alec barely blinks.

Magnus is walking with purpose, a whirlwind of glitter and gold and neon lights electrifying him, right toward him.

Alec forgets how to breathe for a minute.

He approaches Alec and Jace, raising a coifed brow at the mess on the ground.

“Little too drunk, are we boys?” he purrs, chuckling.

Jace glares in good nature at Alec as he shakes whiskey off his boot.

“This moron can’t hold his liquor,” Jace says, laughing at his own pun.

Alec scrambles to remember what words are.

“Yeah, uh, clumsy mistake,” he chokes out, hands twitching as Magnus focuses his sparkling gaze on his face. Magnus has this way of looking at Alec like he wants to either undress or eat him, and Alec can never decide if he’s flattered or if he should run away. Either way, it unnerves Alec every time, and he fiddles with his earring anxiously.

Magnus glances at Jace, eyes rounding dramatically.

“Can I talk to you for a minute, Alec?” Magnus asks sweetly, staring harder at Jace.

Whatever silent message he’s trying to send to Jace, it must work because Jace shakes his head, still laughing, and claps Alec on the shoulder before turning and walking back over to Simon and Clary, who have now moved on to fighting over Star Wars (original trilogy only—Clary mentioned something about the prequels earlier and Simon refused to speak to her for two minutes).

Alec clears his throat awkwardly, wishing to whatever is listening that he still had a drink to fidget with.

“Having fun?” Magnus asks, tilting his head.

Alec shrugs. “Not the biggest fan of clubs, but drinks are cheap and Isabelle wanted me here. So…”

“So of course you came along,” Magnus finishes for him with a knowing smile.

Alec tries not to blush and fails miserably.

“Yeah,” he says, huffing out a pathetic laugh. God, Magnus makes him so _nervous_. He’d never been this much of a disaster around Jace, or any other fleeting fancy he had back when he was still trying to convince himself everything was just a phase. Alec’s always so composed—years and years of shoving his emotions under lock and key beneath the stone surface. But Magnus somehow possesses the power to make him a twittering mess of a man and he has no idea what to do with that.

“Are… are you?” he asks lamely, immediately wanting to shoot himself in the foot for that oh so suave comment.

Magnus smiles though, like he’s delighted Alec thought to ask.

“I am, in fact,” he says. He runs his hand through his artful hair; a delicate movement, unwilling to disturb the balancing act on top of his head but still managing to push a few strands off his face. Magnus glances over his own shoulder, so quick Alec almost misses it, as if he’s watching for someone.

“Listen, Alexander, I… wanted to ask you,” he says, slow, like he’s planning each word carefully.

_Questions, good. Problem solving, great._

“…maybe this Friday?”

Alec stops having a mild panic attack when he realizes he’s missed something crucial. He shakes his head, vision clearing.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Magnus bites his lip, which does absolutely _wild_ things to Alec’s body.

“I asked if you wanted to get a drink with me on Friday,” he says, fighting a laugh at Alec’s hopeless expression. “We both have the night off, yes?”

The world screeches to a halt, the music dying in Alec’s ears and the chatter of his friends and family dulling to a furious hum in the background.

This has to be some sort of elaborate joke. He looks around, waiting for the other shoe to drop, the punchline to hit with blinding accuracy, but all he sees is his sister watching them at the bar, smirking. She sees him looking and raises her glass in a salute.

“You’re… asking me to get a drink?” Alec says, cautious.

“I’m asking you out, yes, Alexander.”

He’s taking too long to answer, he knows it when Magnus’ lovely eyes cloud over and he stands up straighter, like someone is pulling a string from the top of his head.

“That was silly, I’m sorry, I thought—” he starts, but Alec cuts him off immediately.

“No!” he shouts, wincing at how loud he is.

He lowers his voice, face on fire. “No, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t—sorry, you just surprised me.”

Magnus looks at him curiously, manicured nails drumming on the side of the wall Alec had been leaning against earlier. They’re a dark navy tonight, a sheen of iridescent glitter on top adding to his overall walking-kaleidoscope effect.

_You’re a grown ass adult, Alec, just relax._ His internal monologue sounds a lot like Isabelle, which makes him smile despite his anxiety.

Alec nods, albeit a tad shaky. “I’d love to grab a drink Friday, yeah.”

Magnus _lights up_ , his vibrance echoing off the walls. Alec scarcely believes that he caused that reaction, but he’ll take it if it means he can put that brilliant smile on Magnus’ face more often.

“Great,” he says, beaming, and opens his mouth to say something else when Helen and Aline come back to their corner, loudly announcing that they’ve bought shots and everyone is participating.

Magnus smiles apologetically at Alec, eyes soft, and Alec shakes his head, unable to keep the smile off his face.

There will be plenty of time to talk.

On Friday.

Holy shit, he’s going on a date with Magnus _._


	4. Part Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, make sure to follow me on Tumblr @consulalexander. I post things and rant a lot.

**Part Four**

 

_“Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.” – M.F.K. Fisher_

 

Jace Wayland wakes up wanting to die.

Perhaps a bit dramatic, but his head feels like someone is splitting it open with an axe and he can barely move without the whole world spinning.

He moans, lifting his head off the pillow and looking around his room blearily. He doesn’t remember how he got home—the last thing he recalls is fighting Simon for Clary’s attention at Pandemonium and Alec being a hilarious wreck.

_Clary_.

He reaches for his phone on the bedside table and unlocks it, finding his contacts and landing on the number he scored last night; it’s not unusual for Jace to come home from a club or bar with a girl’s number in his phone, many times more than one, but this is something different. It’s chewing at his insides, like a dog with a bone, and he lies there with his thumb poised over Clary’s name, his vision blurring over with red hair and green eyes.

_“You’re an artist?” Jace asks, taking a sip of his beer, eyeing her hands._

_Clary looks down at them, covered in smears of charcoal and pastels, and her cheeks match her hair adorably._

_“Yeah,” she says. “Well, trying to be. My mom does it for a living—she’s taught me everything I know.”_

_“I’d love to see one of your pieces, sometime,” Jace says, surprising himself at how honest he is._

_She seems just as surprised. “Really?”_

_Jace nods. Her eyes are huge and round and the greenest he’s ever seen. She doesn’t try to hide her emotions, but even if she did, she would fail. Those eyes betray everything, and Jace finds himself staring into them a lot longer than appropriate._

_She’s embarrassed, ducking her head so he breaks the gaze. The floor shifts underneath him; he’s never experienced such a loss of equilibrium over a girl before. It’s terrifying, but Jace isn’t one to run from danger. According to, well, everyone, he throws himself headfirst into it._

_Often to his detriment._

_“What about you?” she asks, changing the subject. “There must be more to you than waiting tables at your family’s restaurant.”_

Oh, if only she knew. If she did, she’d probably run for the hills.

Jace keeps his distance, always. His longest relationship was about two months, he has no blood family to speak of and he guards his heart with an iron cage. The only people who truly know him are Isabelle and Alec, and he’s never wanted that to change. Alec and Isabelle are safe, bound by family ties that run deeper and truer than blood—they’re all the family he has and all the family he wants.

Clary, though. She’s different from the others. He can’t pinpoint exactly how, but one look into those eyes back at the restaurant and he was _gone_.

Restless, Jace checks the time. It’s eight thirty in the morning—even hungover, Jace’s internal clock won’t let him sleep past eight. He’s trained his body to at least wake up at a semi-reasonable hour, but when he was a kid, he was up with the sun, bounding through the dewy gardens of the Lightwood manor in upstate New York or tinkling the keys of the grand piano as the sun emerged from behind the horizon, sparkling across the ocean in a place he'd rather forget.

He slides out of bed, throwing a hoodie on over his naked torso, and leans against the wall behind his headboard. Balling his fist, he raps on the wall like it’s a door, pressing his ear against the plaster to listen for movement. Hearing nothing, he tries again, louder and more forceful.

_Nada_.

Well, that won’t do.

Jace slips out of his room, closing the door firmly behind him, and pads a little down the hall to the room next to his. He opens the door, slow like molasses, and pokes his head in, smirking at the lump burrowed inside the mountain of blankets on the bed, barely a tuft of black hair poking out.

He creeps toward the bed slowly, rising on the tips of his toes, breathing shallow, and pauses over Alec’s sleeping form. Jace pulls back the comforter, silken between his fingers, and pokes Alec lightly on the forehead.

Alec’s nose wrinkles in sleep, but he doesn’t stir.

Jace grins, straightening up. He slides backward on his heels across the hardwood floor, and, taking a gentle running start, throws himself bodily onto Alec’s bed with a soft grunt.

Alec yells and shoots ramrod straight up in bed, chest heaving. Jace bursts out laughing, rolling onto his side and clutching his stomach gleefully.

“You—” Alec grabs his pillow and assaults Jace’s face with it. “You—fucking—asshole!”

Jace is laughing so hard his sides hurt, his jaw aching from the stretch of his smile as Alec pummels him with a down pillow.

“What the hell is wrong with you!” Alec snaps when he tires of physical violence, opting instead to glare filthily in Jace’s direction.

“I knocked!” Jace protests, sitting up and crossing his legs on the bed. “You didn’t wake up!”

“So you decided to _throw yourself on my bed?_ ”

Jace shrugs. “I was bored.”

Alec stares at Jace like he wants to hit him with a really large mallet. Rolling his eyes and muttering something unsavory under his breath, Alec gets out of bed, clad in only black boxers. His hair is wild and his tattoos are on full display; the Lightwood crest on his side, flames escaping from the gilded edges and wrapping up his body, licking over his neck before wrapping around his shoulder; the dark angel wings folding over his bicep, loose feathers dripping down his arm and merging with the tail of the arrow inked straight down his forearm; drawn, intricate bow wrapping around the front and swirling black fire tying it all together.

Jace has a few tattoos of his own—the falcon on his back, ‘Memento Mori’ on his wrist, Isabelle and Alec’s handprints on his ribs—but he has them more for vanity than anything, getting a warm rush of pride whenever his wrist flashes or walks around without a shirt. He craves the attention his tattoos provide, and they generate _attention_. Not just because of ‘oh look a hot guy with tattoos!’ (though who is he to complain about _that_ ), but because they’re genuinely beautiful pieces of art, done by the same artist who’d done the entirety of Alec’s.

He senses vanity isn’t the reason for Alec’s—if anything, it’s the opposite. Alec hides his art under his dark, monotone clothes, barely the whisper of his ink exposed on either his wrist or his neck (a travesty in Jace’s opinion because Meliorn’s art is unparalleled and Alec’s tattoos in particular are a special kind of dark beauty). Jace used to wonder why, until he went with Alec to one of his appointments. His eyes were screwed shut as the needle in Meliorn’s careful hands stuttered up and down his ribs to create the Lightwood crest, the fingers of his left-hand curling and uncurling and taking short, shuddering breaths each time the needle dipped back down.

But there was a strange calm in the air, emanating from Alec like a vapor, like the sharp pain from the needle on skin and bone was a kind of bliss. Jace understood what this was for Alec, then.

It worries him, sometimes. But Jace knows, because he _gets_ Alec the way Alec gets him like something is tethering their souls together, that this is something Alec has to face on his own.

“Wanna get breakfast?” Jace asks as Alec fumbles around in his closet for a shirt. “It’s our day off, I’m feeling brunchy. I could use a bloody mary.”

“How are you so _chipper_ in the morning, even hungover,” Alec grumbles angrily to himself, yanking on a black t-shirt and running his hands through his gravity-defying hair hopelessly.

“Must be the genetics, you Lightwoods are all grumps before noon,” Jace says, shrugging his shoulders.

Alec rolls his eyes, still spectacularly sarcastic even when tired.

“Fine, but I’m making coffee first,” Alec says, grabbing his phone off the charger and unlocking it. He freezes in place, Jace looking at him curiously.

“What?” he asks. “Someone send you a nude by mistake?”

Alec’s cheeks flame, bright as beet juice.

“ _No_ ,” Alec stammers, too harsh. Jace’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline. Alec’s mastered the art of the poker face (well, an angrier version of a poker face—Alec has the most impressive resting bitch face Jace has ever had the privilege of seeing) and is generally one of the most composed people Jace knows. However, Alec isn’t immune to everything, especially when it comes to one particular subject.

A slow grin paints Jace’s face. “Did Magnus text you?”

Alec lifts his arm like he’s going to throw the phone at Jace; Jace springs up from the bed and dances out the door, cackling, Alec shrieking after him, “YOU get to wake up Isabelle!”.

 

* * * *

 

They wind up at Taki’s, a greasy spot a couple blocks away from the loft in the East Village all three of them share—courtesy of Maryse, as part of an agreement that they would each work at the restaurant for five years. Jace doesn’t mind the subtle manipulation, though both Alec and Isabelle groan about it almost daily. He’s just happy to go rent free in Manhattan and make a decent living.

They sit down in one of the sticky booths, unfolding their peeling plastic menus and squinting in the morning light. Jace figures he looks like shit, if his siblings are anything to go off of: Alec’s still rocking the bedhead, five o’clock shadow dusting his chin and still half asleep, and Isabelle’s wearing yoga pants and a sweatshirt with massive sunglasses covering her bloodshot eyes.

Their waitress is Kaelie, of course, because Jace’s luck is apparently not on his side this morning.

“Hi, Jace,” she says as she approaches, all legs and long, shiny hair. She barely acknowledges Alec or Isabelle, not that they’re paying attention to anything other than their raging headaches.

Jace gives her a tight smile. “Hey, Kaelie.”

He’d dated Kaelie for a couple months a year ago—it was fun, nothing exclusive. At least that’s what he’d thought. Kaelie had other ideas; he’d broken it off, not wanting to get serious; she’d broken into the loft, trashing his room and throwing his laptop out the window.

Alec nearly flipped a table when he found out and changed the locks the next day. Needless to say, the tension is icy at best.

“What can I get you guys?” Kaelie asks, pen poised and not even bothering to hide her scowl.

“Lots of coffee,” Alec says, resting his chin in his hands. “Like, bring the whole pot. And three eggs, over easy, side of bacon, and an English muffin. Thanks.”

Isabelle snaps her menu closed and smiles saccharinely at Kaelie.

“Egg white veggie omelet and a side of hash browns. Oh, and a mimosa with a splash of cranberry, _por favor_.”

“Bloody mary, biscuits and gravy with an egg and side of bacon, thank you, Kaelie,” Jace says, as polite as he can be.

Kaelie writes everything down and turns on her heel, marching away with a flick of her hips. Isabelle snorts at her back, taking a sip of water.

“I see she’s still not over it,” Isabelle says.

Jace gives her a crooked smirk as Kaelie comes back with their drinks, trying not to laugh when she slams the pot of coffee on the table right in front of a dozing Alec, jerking him awake. Jace pours him a cup and waves it under Alec’s nose. He grabs the mug, large hands raising it to his lips.

“So, how was everyone’s night?” Jace asks conversationally.

Alec sputters mid-drink. Isabelle lets out a sigh and takes a long drink of her mimosa.

“Great, if you call dancing and getting drunk to forget about the fact that your ex is standing at the bar twenty feet away watching you great.”

Jace winces; Alec perks up a little when he realizes they aren’t talking about him yet.

“Iz, it’s for the best, you know it is,” Jace murmurs, grabbing her free hand from across the table and giving it a squeeze.

Alec stares into his coffee, but Jace knows what he’s thinking.

_Fucking Raphael._ It’s what Jace thinks too, though he’s less outwardly aggressive about it than Alec is. Alec makes no effort to disguise the fact that he loathes Raphael; Jace has a bit more tact, and since they have to work with him Jace figures it’s probably a good idea to at least learn to tolerate his presence.

Isabelle sighs heavily, putting her dusty champagne flute on the table.

“I know, I know,” she says, sneaking a peek at Alec, who’s still sulking into his coffee. “I just… look, is it so wrong to miss someone if they were bad for you? We did so many things I regret— _I_ did so many things I regret—but we still have happy memories together, despite all that. He… understands me in a way no one else does, and I miss that connection sometimes.”

She bites her lips, drumming her razor-sharp nails against the table and refusing to meet Jace’s eyes.

“It’s hard, when we’re at the club at the same time, or the bars,” she murmurs, darkness clouding her gaze as she’s pulled into memories all three of them would rather forget. “That… that was us. The night life was a part of us. Not sharing it with him anymore… it doesn’t feel right.”

Alec clears his throat, breaking his self-imposed silence.

“He’s scum and you’re better off without him,” Alec says, something tight in his voice like he’s losing circulation in his throat.

Jace looks at him sharply; Isabelle says nothing, staring into her glass like it holds all the answers to the universe, face gray.

_Chill out_ , Jace mouths to Alec, glaring at him fiercely. They’re all hungover and cranky; Jace can’t deal with another war between the two of them over Raphael. He’s forced to mediate every time and he has zero patience for it this morning.

His phone buzzes in his pocket.

**CLARY: Last night was fun. I think I’m going to like working here. Thanks for the conversation.** **😊**

Jace grins in spite of himself, looking down at his lap so his siblings can’t see his expression.

**ME: Glad you had a good time, I’m taking you up on that tour of your mom’s gallery. Any Clary Fray originals on display?**

**CLARY: Ha. I mean, there’s a few.**

**CLARY: The gallery opening is next week.**

**CLARY: You wouldn’t… want to go with me, would you?**

Jace chuckles to himself, catching Isabelle’s attention.

“What are you smirking at over there?” Isabelle asks, voice coy.

Jace quickly types out an ‘absolutely’ and stows his phone away before Isabelle can swipe it, as she’s prone to doing at any given time.

“Nothing,” he says rapidly, eyes flicking over to Alec, who’s gone from staring at his coffee intently to his phone.

“Magnus texted Alec this morning,” Jace blurts out, eager to get Isabelle’s probing eyes off him.

Alec looks like Jace just punched him.

“I… We… That’s none of your business!” Alec says, eyes as wild as his hair.

Alec isn’t as fast with his phone—Isabelle dives for it, sliding it across the table into her waiting hands.

“Isabelle!”

Isabelle holds Alec’s phone aloft, clearing her throat like she’s about to give a speech. Alec glares at her menacingly, to no avail.

“‘Good morning, _angel_ , I had a great time last night,’” Isabelle reads in a terrible impersonation of Magnus’ unique, elevated way of speaking.

Alec’s face is so scarlet Jace could fry eggs on it.

Isabelle deepens her voice to match Alec’s tone, though the effect is more like she’s choking on pudding. “‘I had a good time too. Looking forward to Friday.’”

Her voice goes breathy, and Jace tries to hold back his laughter but can’t stop the loud snort exploding from him. “‘Let’s go far, farrr from the Institute. I’m talking Brooklyn far.’”

Isabelle lowers her voice again, and even Alec can’t hide the little amused smile playing at his lips.

“‘I couldn’t agree more,’” she says dramatically.

She raises her eyebrows at Alec, who buries his head in his hands. Jace grabs his shoulders, shaking him wildly.

“Embarrassed, are we _angel_?” he says mockingly.

Isabelle lets out a barking laugh and Alec kicks him hard in the shin. The bruise is worth it, however.

Jace leans back in his seat, eyes shining as he looks at Alec.

“In all seriousness though, I really am happy for you dude,” he says. “Magnus is great and you’ve been obsessed with him for two years, don’t deny it. I’m glad _something_ is finally happening there, it’s been damn painful to watch for the rest of us.”

Alec rolls his eyes, but seems pleased, the corners of his eyes crinkling with his grin.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Alec says, wringing his fingers together anxiously.

Isabelle reaches over and squeezes her brother's hands, breaking apart when their food arrives. They eat in companionable silence, the true mark of a family. In these moments, Jace sometimes thinks about where he was before, in that house by the ocean that screamed with beauty and terror, and thanks every deity he knows that he sits here now, with the two people he loves most in the world—without them, he wouldn’t be whole.

Their peaceful breakfast is interrupted by the simultaneous, shrill tone of their phones. They all exchange a look before unlocking their screens and reading the message.

It feels like a brick dropped into his stomach, and his feelings are matched when he meets his siblings’ gazes.

**MOM: Get to the restaurant now. Your father is coming.**


	5. Part Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry this took so long! Had to rework some major plot points, and then Shadowhunters broke my damn heart with the finale. Hope you enjoy, and as always come follow me at consulalexander on Tumblr!

Part Five

_“Waiters are like actors waiting in the wings, bantering whenever we passed each other on the restaurant floor, shouting at each other backstage in the kitchen and winking and corpsing above the heads of our audience, the unsuspecting customers.” –Richard Eyre_

The restaurant is dark when they arrive, eerie in its stillness. Far before opening hours, it’s as quiet as a tomb. Alec feels like he should be holding his breath as they wind their way through the maze of tables toward the back office. Alec leads the way, with Isabelle behind him and Jace bringing up the rear, Isabelle’s hands clasped tightly in both of theirs.

Their father.

Alec hasn’t thought about Robert Lightwood in nine months, beyond the periphery mention of him via his angry mother. He’d stopped respecting him years before that, after he’d come out. That had been a disaster in itself.

Despite their mother’s tough love, all three of them had rallied around her when the cheating scandal broke—more than just restaurateurs, the Lightwoods are old New York money, a world as toxic as his father and something Alec avoids like the plague. Isabelle and Jace can slip into that façade of slick smiles and faux charisma with ease. Alec doesn’t even try to assimilate anymore—he knows he’s judged and he used to care. He used to keep his head down and do what was asked of him, anything he could to keep his family name alive.

But then his father found Annamarie Highsmith, and nothing mattered anymore. Suddenly their world was plunged into drama and screaming and broken sobs as secret after secret became exposed, like peeling an onion. Their family, already under the strain of an absent father even when he was physically present and an unforgiving family legacy, finally broke under the weight of their secrets.

Alec’s been trying with his mother since they found out. Despite everything, she’s his mom and she’s suffering from a broken heart. Even if that broken heart is then thrust onto him.

But his father… he doesn’t think he can ever forgive him. Not for this, not for anything.

They approach the office door, fists clenched tightly together, an impenetrable shield of shattered Lightwoods walking onto the minefield that is their parents. Dread creeps up Alec’s spine, and he opens the door.

Maryse sits in the large armchair behind the desk, hands clasped in front of her and looking disgruntled. Robert stands in the corner, solemn.

Robert Lightwood isn’t a small man—tall like Alec and broad, imposing and stern. When Alec was a kid, he thought Robert was the most terrifying figure he’d ever seen.

Now, he looks anything but.

“Dad,” Isabelle says, blunt and annoyed. She pushes her sunglasses up, revealing her dark, tired eyes. Tired from the night they’d had, but also tired of their general family bullshit.

Alec’s immensely grateful for Isabelle’s take charge attitude, in situations like this.

Maryse looks like she’s swallowed a foul-tasting pill, and glances at Robert, body tight as a bow string.

“What’s going on?” Jace says, crossing his arms over his chest. “This isn’t a social call—you don’t do that. Definitely haven’t in almost a year.”

Robert winces.

“I’d like to know as well, Robert,” Maryse says, venom slicing through his name. Alec looks at her in surprise—he’d assumed Maryse had been in the loop, from the urgency of her text message.

“I’m sure you’re upset with me,” he begins, and Isabelle cuts him off.

“Upset— _upset_ with you?” she almost screeches. “That’s a fucking understatement. We’re _livid_ , _papi_.”

Isabelle is building up steam, and Alec takes a small step back like she’s going to blow.

“How—so you just cheat on mom for years and treat us all like shit, and when we all find out you up and leave and move in with the other woman? Act like we don’t even exist beyond fighting over Max like he’s some sort of trophy to you? And now you just come back after nine months of nothing and decide you want to talk to us again? That is such _bullshit_!”

Isabelle takes a heaving deep breath, closing her eyes and taming the flames that have just sparked. Robert looks on, the dark eyes that are so much like Isabelle’s yet somehow as wide and expressive as Alec’s shamed. Those same eyes flick over to Alec, who hasn’t said a word. Alec looks away.

“I… there is no excuse for what I’ve done, Isabelle. None,” Robert says. “But I think, in time, things will be better for all of us.”

“For all of us? Or just you? Last I checked you didn’t give a damn what happens to us,” Jace snarls.

Robert looks like he’s been slapped, like this is some sort of shock, and that’s when Alec sees it, glinting like a beacon where the collar of his shirt meets his skin. It’s barely noticeable, but the shining red of the raw skin is enough to send Alec into a quiet fury.

The love bite gloats at him, teases him about this new life Alec’s father has, where apparently he and his siblings don’t fit. Where his mother doesn’t fit, where the restaurant doesn’t fit. Alec remembers when Maryse told them they were getting a divorce—it was the softest Alec had ever seen her, face devoid of emotion but eyes just as transparent as Alec’s own, betraying every emotion the rest of her face tried to hide.

_“It was our dream,” Maryse said of the Institute. “Your father’s and mine. But I suppose all dreams must die eventually.”_

_“Mom, you can’t say that. Dad may have given up but that doesn’t mean you have to.”_

_“I don’t know how to do this without him, Alec. Any of it.”_

_“You don’t need him. You’ve got us.”_

Now, Maryse’s face is cold as she looks at Robert, and Alec is reminded eerily of himself. He grows hot, suddenly, and pushes up the sleeves of his hoodie, the tip of his arrow tattoo exposed and sharp as if he’s preparing to wield it.

Robert clears his throat, the sound final, like a judge banging a gavel.

“I’m moving back into the city,” he says, firm. “With the current custody agreement and moving forward with the divorce proceedings, it makes the most sense. And that way, Max won’t have to split his time between the city and New Jersey.

“I’ve purchased an apartment in the Upper East Side, and we’re moving into it next week.

“My… my hope is that we can use this opportunity, of me being here more, to… start over. If we can. I know nothing can truly make up for what I’ve done to you children—and to you, Maryse—but I hope I can at least start trying.”

One could hear a pin drop in the silence of the room. Alec wonders if anyone is even breathing.

Isabelle, naturally, is the first to speak, and her voice is dangerous, daring Robert to fight her.

“ _We?_ ” she emphasizes.

Robert has the grace to look sheepish, at least.

“Yes. We. Annamarie and I.”

Jace makes a gagging sound at the back of his throat, and Alec has the sudden urge to flee, to escape the stifling room and run to the kitchen, throwing himself into one of the walk ins and never leaving.

“You’re joking,” Alec says instead, and Robert looks at him sharply, his expression shocked before settling into something akin to warmth.

It only now occurs to him that it’s the first thing Alec’s said since they stepped into the office.

“Alexander, I understand your hesitation—”

“No, you don’t,” Alec interrupts. His anger is steady, a constant burning flame instead of a shower of sparks like Jace’s or Isabelle’s. “You understand absolutely nothing about me. Don’t expect me to bend over backwards because you think you’re being a good father by trying to reach out. The damage is done. Don’t pretend you know anything about what I feel—you haven’t been here so how could you possibly know?”

With that, Alec turns on his heel and storms out of the office, leaving the shocked gazes of his family behind as the heavy door slams shut behind him.

He marches down the hall, his mind racing. How dare he? How dare he just come and think everything is fine because he’s back, because he’s deigned to give a rat’s ass about them again? Alec’s skin crawls, like bugs running over his body.

The nerve of his father, really, to think that he can destroy everything and come back later thinking they’ll rebuild around him. And that _look_ —the look he’d given Alec, like a father is supposed to look at their son, with love and sympathy. Robert had never looked at Alec like that; not until now.

Alec sees right through it, and the mockery of fatherly love in the gaze breaks another little piece off of Alec’s heart.

He’s so angry that he’s not watching where he’s going, and barrels right into none other than Magnus Bane gliding through the front door, with grocery bags dangling off his arms and keys twirling on his finger. Magnus shouts in surprise, his elbow jamming sharp into Alec’s gut. Alec grunts loudly, losing his footing and sending them both crashing to the ground. Alec quickly rolls them so he receives the brunt of the blow against the hard floor, landing flat on his back with Magnus sprawled on top of him, groceries scattered around them.

“You really know how to sweep a man off his feet,” Magnus mumbles breathlessly.

“I didn’t see you,” Alec chokes out, lifting his head from the ground to look at Magnus, assaulted by wafts of sandalwood and Magnus’ skin. “Are you alright?”

“ _I’m_ fine, we should be much more worried about my duck eggs,” Magnus says, pushing himself off Alec.

He extends a hand to Alec, who takes it after a moment of hesitation, pulling him to his feet. Magnus immediately rushes to one of the fallen bags, cradling it gently in his arms and breathing a sigh of relief when he looks inside. He looks back over at Alec and points his finger accusingly at him.

“You’re lucky this time,” Magnus says. “Count your blessings these didn’t crack, otherwise I would’ve been forced to commit a heinous crime against you.”

Alec quirks an eyebrow, his anger momentarily abated in favor of bemusement—his constant state of being around Magnus. He gathers the groceries carefully around him, putting them back into the bags.

“Sorry for almost breaking your eggs, then,” Alec says, cradling the bags in his arms.

Magnus smirks at him. “Well, the least you can do is help me take these to the kitchen.”

Alec would like nothing better than to leave the restaurant entirely, knowing his family is still in the office duking it out for who gets to be angriest, but the kitchen is on the opposite end from the office and when Magnus is looking at him like that, with his eyes shining like stars in the sky, Alec is powerless to say no. He learned that very quickly upon their first meeting two years ago.

He pushes aside his residual anger and follows Magnus, staring fiercely at the back of his head so his gaze doesn’t drift lower.

“What are you doing here so early, anyway?” Magnus asks as they walk through the heavy kitchen doors.

Alec winces, setting the bags on the counter closest to the walk ins.

“Family meeting,” Alec mutters, looking down at his hands.

Magnus pauses in putting away some bulk spices and looks at Alec curiously.

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all,” Magnus says.

Alec leans against the counter and groans, putting his head in his hands. His anger is dormant, like a glowing ember in his gut, but the more he thinks about the toxicity in that office, the more he thinks about his father’s expression, the furious words of his siblings and the pain on his mother’s face, the brighter that ember glows.

“My father’s back,” Alec says bluntly, spitting out the words.

Magnus closes the cupboard he’s been loading the spices into and cocks his head, assessing him. Alec shrinks under his gaze—a hilarious feat to witness, probably, because he’s so tall. His height is a curse, in Alec’s opinion; he’s spent a lifetime trying not to be noticed, but the second he shot upward at fifteen and Jace couldn’t keep the “how’s the weather up there?” jokes to himself, Alec knew he would never get to be invisible again.

“I’m guessing you’re not feeling great about that,” Magnus says, moving to stand next to him and leaning his hip against the counter.

He’s never explicitly _told_ Magnus everything that he’s experienced with his father, especially since coming out—most of his conversations with Magnus over the couple years they’ve known each other have been Alec stuttering and blushing furiously over Magnus’ charm and not much else—but it’s not like it’s a secret, and he doesn’t try to hide his disdain for his father either. The restaurant is a gossip mill, and with how loud the divorce has been, as well as Robert’s sudden absence from the restaurant the past year, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.

“He’s moving back to the city. With _her_. He wants us to ‘be a family’ again,” Alec spits, glowering at his hands. “Such complete horse shit.”

Alec wrings his hands together, fingers so tight around each other that his knuckles start to turn white. Magnus reaches across the counter and pulls his hands apart, his rings cool against Alec’s fingers, and he jerks his hands back in shock. Magnus lets him, doesn’t comment on the harshness of the action, and for that Alec is grateful.

“Are you working tonight?” Magnus asks, catching Alec off guard.

“Uh, no,” Alec says, looking up and meeting Magnus’ gaze.

“I’m just dropping this stuff off,” Magnus says, gesturing widely to the groceries around them, “and then I’m done for the day. What do you say we grab that drink now?”

Alec raises his eyebrows. “It’s like two o’clock.”

Magnus grins. “It’s always five o’clock somewhere, darling. And you look like you could use a stiff one.”

He winks lecherously and Alec goes red, glancing down at his hands again because staring at Magnus’ flawless face is way too much for him to handle right now.

However, Magnus does have a point. And Alec is desperate to get as far away from his father as possible.

As if on cue, Alec’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out, seeing a message from Jace in the sibling group chat light up on his screen.

**JACE: Dude, where’d you go? You missed it, Izzy and Mom got heated as hell after you stormed out.**

Alec glances over at Magnus, who’s watching him expectantly, and makes a snap decision.

**ME: Good, he deserves it. Needed to get out of there, going for a drink with Magnus.**

**JACE: Oh shit, get ittttttttt. ;)**

Alec rolls his eyes and stows his phone back in his pocket, rolling back his shoulders.

“You know what,” he says, fixing Magnus with a wan smile. “I think you’re right. Let’s get that drink.”

 

* * * *

           

Magnus is _definitely_ in trouble.

He’s been staring at the juncture between Alec’s strong shoulder and thick neck for the past half an hour, visible the second he took off his hoodie once they’d sat down in a sweltering bar that looks straight out of How I Met Your Mother. His tattoos creep above the collar of his t-shirt, flames licking at his neck, and Magnus can barely tear his gaze away.

Magnus always finds Alec attractive—devastatingly so, in fact—but their one drink has turned into three or four and tipsy Magnus finds the attraction unbearable. It’s taking everything in him not to reach out and trace the flames over Alec’s skin with his finger; he imagines running it up Alec’s neck and across his structured jaw, over the pillows of his lips and watching with delight as his face flushes.

Even vaguely inebriated, however, Magnus knows how easily Alec spooks. They may have finally done something about the song and dance they’ve been doing around each other for the past couple years, but Magnus knows that getting under Alec’s skin is a delicate art. Alec is a Fabergé egg, something Magnus has seen firsthand from the way he retreats into himself when uncomfortable, hiding in that bubble of self-deprecation that stems from years of being put down by his father.

_His father_.

Magnus plays with the toothpick in his dirty martini, spinning slightly on his stool to face Alec. They’ve been avoiding the topic for over an hour, which Magnus was more than willing to do when they first sat down, opting instead to flirt outrageously until Alec’s face was red from both the booze and the pleased embarrassment.

But now that they’re sufficiently plied with alcohol, Magnus feels like the elephant that is Robert Lightwood needs to be addressed.

“Do you want to talk about him?” Magnus asks, hooking his foot around one of the legs of Alec’s stool.

Alec looks up from his gin and tonic—no frills with his drinks, something Magnus respects—and grimaces.

“What’s the point?” Alec mutters darkly. “He’s going to do whatever he wants anyway, regardless of my family’s feelings. Especially mine.”

Magnus drums his manicured nails on the counter. “You don’t think he’s remorseful at all? If he’s moving back to the city he must want to be around the family.”

Alec snorts loudly.

“Yeah,” he says, “because he definitely showed he wants to be around us this past year. And, while we’re at it, my entire life.”

The sarcasm in his voice is so palpable Magnus could catch it and put it in a jar. But underneath is a note of self-loathing that Magnus can’t bear to hear. Despite the mental chiding he’s just given himself, Magnus rests his hand on Alec’s knee and squeezes, forcing Alec to look his way in surprise, but he doesn’t move away and Magnus doesn’t move his hand.

“Your father missed out on someone great,” Magnus murmurs. “Don’t sell yourself short because he did. There’s nothing for you to apologize for.”

Alec’s big eyes are wide like he’s staring into the sun, and Magnus catches his breath. Sometimes, Alec is so stunning he can barely look at him without combusting.

“He… I thought I knew who I was,” Alec says, voice soft and slightly thick from alcohol. “After I came out, even after the shit show that coming out was, I thought that I would finally be able to be myself. But it’s like… whenever he’s around, I go back to the unhappy, angry person I used to be. A person I never want to be again. And the fact that  _that_ person is who my father would rather have for a son…”

Alec sighs, loud and painful, rubbing a large hand over his face like he’s trying to scrub away a lifetime of memories.

“I can’t be around him, Magnus,” Alec says, voice breaking a little and making Magnus’ heart crack. “I can’t be around him and be okay, even if he wants to fix things. Not after…”

His voice trails off, and he looks away, back down to the safety of his glass. Magnus doesn’t know exactly what the breaking point between Alec and Robert was—he knows their relationship has been fraught most of Alec’s life, and he assumes that their main point of contention has something to do with the day Alec came out, according to both allusions made by Alec and the little information he’s managed to wrangle from Isabelle, but he doesn’t know what exactly happened during that pivotal conversation, and Alec isn’t the most forthcoming about it.

Magnus never had the coming out conversation with his parents—his mother pinned him as bisexual probably when Magnus popped out of the womb, and she’d died from cancer when Magnus was fifteen, something that Magnus still grieves over to this day. When he’d gone to live in his own personal hell with his father, Magnus had made sure that Asmodeus never found out about Magnus’, well, _extracurricular activities_.

Asmodeus must’ve had an inkling, however; nothing else Magnus has come up with over the years could explain away the absolute contempt his father had for him, and though Magnus never brought anyone home to meet his father, he wasn’t shy with the makeup he applied to his face, the clothes he wore as a teenager or his own general flair for the dramatic. Asmodeus frightened him—he always had, even when living with his mother. His father was a scary story to tell in the dark, a lesson for what not to become. But he didn’t scare him enough to hide who he was completely.

He’d packed up his things at midnight on his eighteenth birthday and escaped through the window of his father’s home in upstate New York—a mask of perfect suburban living, no one of the wiser about what actually went on in that toxic place. Magnus caught a bus to the city, moved into Raphael’s room, met Ragnor and Catarina, gone to culinary school with Cat’s help and the inheritance his mother had left him, and the rest was history.

He’s never looked back to that A-frame, blue house in a cul-de-sac of nightmares, and he never will as long as he lives.

Magnus definitely knows a thing or two about toxic, homophobic fathers, and Alec’s soft confession claws at something deep in Magnus’ soul; something that only an equally broken soul can understand.

_Fuck it_. Magnus moves his hand from Alec’s knee only to pry his hand from around the glass he holds like a life line, clasping it in his own because he needs to feel Alec, needs him to know that even though whatever’s happening between them is so new it has a new car smell, Magnus is here for him no matter what.

Alec looks like a deer caught in the headlights, unused to physical affection from, well, _anyone_ , and he almost pulls away, but Magnus rubs his thumb against Alec’s knuckles and something changes in Alec’s gaze. He carefully slots their fingers together on the bar counter, like he’s afraid Magnus will reject it (absolutely ludicrous that Magnus would ever reject Alec _ever_ ), and Magnus’ stomach swoops.

“You don’t need validation from him, even if you think you do,” Magnus says, voice low and getting lost in the storming ocean of Alec’s eyes. “You’re absolutely perfect the way you are. Trust me, I would know, I don’t just ogle anyone. I have high standards.”

Alec laughs loudly, his cheeks bright red and an embarrassed grin splitting his face. He squeezes Magnus’ hand.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, eye sparkling brilliantly. “That means more than you know.”

“What, me ogling you?” Magnus teases, smirking. “I should be thanking _you_ for that.”

Alec laughs again, ducking his head, and Magnus decides right then and there that his mission in life is to get Alec to laugh whenever possible. Happiness is stunning on him.

Magnus hopes that, in time, he can get Alec to see it too.


	6. Part Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! My computer's back! I owe you so much stuff! Check back soon because I'll have part 7 up before you know it!
> 
> As always, come follow me on Tumblr! consulalexander.tumblr.com

_Part Six_

_“A great restaurant is one that just makes you feel like you're not sure whether you went out or you came home and confuses you. If it can do both of those things at the same time, you're hooked.” – Danny Meyer_

Simon hates Friday nights.

In the lives of twenty-something New Yorkers, or at least the ones Simon knows, Friday nights are for drinking and drugs and partying until daybreak. They’re for stumbling around Times Square at midnight and drunk subway rides; selfies in bars and dancing on the sidewalk; late night stops for street tacos or eating pizza in a greasy corner shop that’s open until four in the morning.

Not for Simon, though. Friday nights for him are spent behind the bar of The Institute as a slave to the bartender’s whims: pouring beer and wine while the bartender talks to patrons and mixes drinks, juicing or dashing to the cellar for more liquor or wine, changing kegs, running messages to the kitchen… the list of menial tasks is endless.

Simon in general hates barbacking, but the hatred is exacerbated by two things in particular—the hectic atmosphere of the first night of the weekend, and his bartender.

“ _Simon_ , I needed that glass of the Rothschild five minutes ago!” Alec barks, shaking a margarita and jaw tight.

Simon glowers at the bottle in his hands and yanks one more time on the stubborn cork; his final, violent jerk sends the cork careening across the bar and landing into the ice chest. Alec looks over at him, blue eyes like daggers, and Simon winces.

“Sorry, it was stuck,” he says over the roar of the restaurant.

Alec rolls his eyes, pouring the margarita into the waiting glass and sliding it into Lydia’s pick up station. Simon sighs, picking up the next drink ticket and glancing out over the restaurant, stopping at the sight of a flash of red hair. Clary’s walking across the restaurant, menus held against her chest as she chats to the couple she’s leading to their seats, her face split into a delicate smile.

Simon isn’t used to keeping things from his best friend of… well, his whole life. Since the playground, since he knew what a friend even _was_ , Clary was there, covered in pastel smudges and crazy fire engine hair. There isn’t one thing Clary doesn’t know about him—except this.

He really wishes he could be in love with someone else. But it’s her, it’s always been her, and Simon fights it daily with tooth and nail but still that pesky feeling of _love_ wins every time.

“Hey daydreamer, hand me that corkscrew, would you?”

Simon glances over in surprise, expecting Alec’s withering glare but instead finding Isabelle’s sweet smile.

“Uhh… yeah, sure,” Simon stammers.

He reaches behind him for the corkscrew lying on the counter, grip slipping on the waxy handle. Isabelle always sends him into a daze—she’s like the sun, stunningly beautiful but blinding when you look at her.

“Hang in there,” Isabelle says, glancing warily over at her brother mixing a pair of old fashioned’s and speaking lowly to an elderly woman sitting prim at the bar. “He’s in a bad mood because our dad’s back, nothing to do with you.”

Simon snorts in spite of himself.

“No, it always has at least a little something to do with me,” Simon says, because it’s true and he’s not sugar coating it. He knows Alec doesn’t like him—the feeling is mutual, so it’s not like he’s going to cry about it.

Isabelle gives him a pitying smile, but she doesn’t try to argue. Isabelle isn’t one to lie, which Simon appreciates. He’s gone most of his life trying to be as honest as possible—the one lesson in particular both his mother and his rabbi have consistently drilled into him since he was old enough to understand. Honesty, no matter the cost, and those who share this thought he holds in high regard.

He wonders what his rabbi would think of him lying to his best friend since day one.

Isabelle deftly opens the bottle of wine she’s holding, a stark contrast to Simon’s struggle from earlier.

“I heard about your dad being back from Lydia,” Simon says quietly, his eyes darting over to Alec. “That must suck for you.”

Everyone knows the reason Robert and Maryse are divorcing, though no one dares to talk about the why of it all anywhere near the Lightwoods. The family’s discovery of Robert’s infidelity wasn’t exactly quiet. The Lightwoods in general aren’t a quiet family, Simon muses, looking at Isabelle. Her dark hair is twisted up off her neck and held by two silver chopsticks, lips painted a deep red and looking elegant and poised in a long black dress. She reminds Simon of Maryse, without the frown lines and much more agreeable.

Isabelle pauses, dark nails drumming on the glass of the wine bottle.

“Sucks for some people more,” she says, looking over at Alec again.

“Whatever happened between them?” Simon asks, not really intending to say the thought aloud but words coming out anyway. “Besides, you know, your dad cheating on your mom.”

Isabelle’s expression darkens, her grip on the wine bottle slipping.

“It’s not my story to tell,” she says, voice grave and sending shivers down Simon’s spine.

Just like her mother, Isabelle can be terrifying too.

Simon opens his mouth to answer, but a loud shout of his name by Alec causes him to flinch. Isabelle chuckles at him, black mood passing as quickly as it came, and turns on her heel, the skirt of her dress swaying. Simon watches her go, dazzled, before another shout sends him scrambling across the bar to the perpetually irritated bartender glaring at him.

“Yes, Captain?” Simon says, saluting Alec.

Alec stares at him like Simon’s the biggest idiot he’s ever met.

“I need two more bottles of the Favinia Bianco, and then run to the kitchen and get more cucumbers. And tell Magnus that Raphael needs to stop making frowning faces with the vegetables in the hummus, it freaks the customers out.”

Simon pauses.

“Wait, seriously?” he says, slightly in awe. “That’s hilarious.”

Alec glowers at him.

“Just do it,” he says gruffly, already turning to look at the next ticket on the line.

“Careful, or your face will freeze that way,” Simon says conversationally, running out from behind the bar before Alec can strangle him.

Simon weaves through the crowd of people around the bar waiting for their tables, sliding not-so-gracefully into the kitchen.

It’s the usual Friday night scene of chaos back there: Jordan spinning plates as he washes dishes like he’s a circus act, Bat running back and forth from the walk-in balancing cilantro in one hand and eggs in the other, Raphael spooning bubbling sauces over some elegantly plated lamb chops, and Magnus overseeing it all, holding a chef’s knife like he’s conducting a symphony, a pile of julienned carrots in front of him.

Magnus holds up a ticket, the kitchen lights glinting off the golden sparkles on his nails, and shouts, “Bat, the risotto is missing a garnish, I need parsley now, _date prisa, vamos, vamos!_ ”

Simon clears his throat awkwardly, catching Magnus’ attention. Magnus looks his way and raises an eyebrow—they’re perfectly tweezed, a dark slender arc above his striking green-gold eyes that complement the swirling colors of the scarf tied around his spiky hair. Simon may be partial to the female persuasion—the glint of the silver chopsticks in Isabelle’s ink black hair oddly come to mind—but he has to admit that if he were into men, Magnus would probably be near the top of his list.

“Uh, Magnus,” Simon says, eyeing the knife in his hand warily. “Alec needs cucumbers. Oh, and also he said to tell Raphael to stop making faces in the hummus. Even though I think it’s kind of awesome, but Alec’s a big dude and could probably snap me in half so my fear wins over my appreciation for a good sense of humor.”

He hears himself rambling but as usual his internal stop sign has been thrown off a cliff somewhere. Lydia barrels through the kitchen doors, almost running into Simon, and shouts something about needing a side of remoulade. Simon darts away as Raphael rounds the corner, practically throwing the sauce at Lydia.

“Raphael! Stop depressing the hummus!” Magnus snaps.

Raphael rolls his eyes.

“I’m not allowed to have fun at work?” he quips back.

“You hate fun.”

“Fine then, I’m not allowed to hate work?”

Simon appreciates witty banter just as much as the next person, but he _really_ doesn’t have time for this.

“Can I just get the cucumbers, please?” Simon almost begs. “If I don’t get back to the bar in the next two seconds Alec will murder me with a corkscrew.”

Magnus’ eyes light up, as if the idea intrigues him for some reason that Simon isn’t sure he wants to know.

“Relax, Shalom, I’ll take the cucumbers to Alexander, you go scamper off and do whatever bidding needs done,” Magnus says with a slow smile, gliding around the counter with ease and starting to pile cucumbers high on a small plate.

“That’s not even a name,” Simon muses, then shrugs to himself. He got the Jewish part right at least.

He speeds out of the kitchen and dashes down to the wine cellar, running to the back refrigerators and grabbing two bottles of the white wine, the moist glass sliding a little in his clammy grip. Simon takes the steps back up two at a time, bounding over to the bar.

He skids to a halt, eyebrows shooting upward in surprise. Robert Lightwood is standing at the doors, head inclined to Clary as he speaks but his eyes honed in on his son behind the bar. Simon can’t hear what he’s saying over the hum of the restaurant, but from the small frown gracing Clary’s lips, it probably isn’t good.

Alec hasn’t seemed to notice his father yet. There’s a lull in drink tickets, if the empty ticket line is anything to go by, and he’s leaning over the counter talking to Magnus, cucumbers in between them and wearing a small smile, obviously oblivious to the hustle of the restaurant around him.

Simon feels like he’s intruding on something, but that doesn’t stop him from walking right toward them, bottles brandished like torches in his fists.

He sidles up to them as Magnus is laughing at something Alec’s said, and says, “Hate to break up the flirt session, but your dad’s here.”

Alec’s head whips around so fast it creates a gust of wind. He stands straighter than an arrow, arms shoved stiffly against his sides.

“And that’s my cue,” Magnus says, pushing away from the counter.

He winks at Alec, who barely notices, and Magnus sends a troubled glance in Simon’s direction before turning on his heel and running back toward the kitchen. The rest of the restaurant buzzes around them in ordinary chaos, like nothing unusual (or terrifying, in Simon’s opinion) is about to happen.

The ticket machine next to the POS spits out three orders in succession, and Alec barks at Simon, shoulders tight, “get on those!”

Simon wrinkles his nose in disdain and sighs, turning to the small row of reach in refrigerators under the counter and putting the bottles of wine inside. He grabs the first drink ticket, putting it on the line so Alec can make the cucumber margarita while he gets the pilsner—one of the few beers they have, as Maryse memorably once said that they “are a five star bistro with world famous clientele, not a bar that’s a front for a prostitution ring off the interstate!”.

He pours the beer and watches out of the corner of his eye as Robert approaches the bar, where Alec is muddling cucumber furiously.

“Hello, son,” Robert says stiffly, hands in his pockets.

Alec grunts in response, pounding harder into the mixing cup. Simon puts the beer up on the bar in Aline’s spot, wiping his hands on the bar towel hanging from his belt loop, and glances up to find Isabelle staring at him hard.

Simon raises his eyebrows at her; she glares at him harder and inclines her head sharply to her right.

Simon’s eyes flick over, seeing Robert and Alec, and he looks back at Isabelle, mouthing _what?_

Isabelle rolls her eyes—apparently Alec isn’t the only Lightwood who has a doctorate in eye rolling. She shifts the tray of waters in her hands to point to her ear and mouths back, _Dad and Alec!_

_Oh._ Simon picks up the next drink ticket and sidles closer to Alec than he really needs to be to pour the glass of pinot noir, ears perked like a cat.

“I just came by to tell you that I want to hold a staff meeting on Monday, so I can get to know everyone. Let the rest of the staff know,” Robert is saying.

Alec pours the margarita into a salt rimmed glass and garnishes it with a lime wedge.

“They need at least a week’s notice for that,” he practically spits.

Simon mentally applauds Alec—Monday is his day off and he has really important plans that involve sleeping until noon, his bong, and ten episodes of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”.

“Fine then, next Friday before we open.”

Robert leans forward, forearms resting on the bar, watching Alec make drinks like he’s studying an animal in the wild.

“Fine then,” Alec parrots, starting on a Bradshaw—one of their specialty cocktails that’s basically a cosmo with a float of raspberry syrup and a sugared rim, aptly named after the legend Carrie Bradshaw and probably the most disgustingly sweet cocktail Simon’s ever tasted. “Just front of house, or does back of house need to be there?”

Alec’s voice is short and clipped, robotic, like he’s a telemarketer talking to the poor unsuspecting soul that picked up the phone and not his own father.

Simon pours two glasses of champagne and watches as Robert’s face clouds over.

“I suppose it will be necessary, yes,” Robert snaps in a way that makes Simon think he’d rather it not be.

Alec pauses in shaking the martini, setting the heavy metal shaker down on the counter and re-rolling the sleeves of his black button down, the tip of the arrow tattooed on his forearm exposed like a beacon against his pale skin.

“You know,” Alec says, like he’s talking about the weather even though he’s clearly seething, “if your goal is to stage a takeover, you might want the kitchen on your side instead of treating them like they’re no better than the gum on your shoe. I hear Bat packs a punch, not that you’d even know who he is. Since you haven’t been here in a year.”

Simon resists the urge to whoop.

Robert’s eyes flash. They aren’t the icy, piercing blue of Alec’s, ever changing in different light and startling; Robert’s eyes are dark, almost as dark as Isabelle’s but every once in a while shining just right and reminding you that they’re blue. They’re wide and intense like Alec’s though, betraying every emotion.

The emotion Simon sees in them is _pissed_.

“Alexander, I am _trying_ here,” Robert hisses, his fist clenching on the bar.

“You can’t just pick and choose the moments to ‘try’, Dad, that’s not how being a parent works,” Alec says.

Simon’s never heard anyone fight so viciously while whispering before, but even if he had, Alec and his father would take the gold for the most efficient use of the skill.

“You don’t know anything about being a parent, Alexander,” Robert snaps. “You don’t know everything.”

“I know enough! I know you broke Mom’s heart, you haven’t been here for a year, and frankly you hadn’t been there before that either.”

Alec’s body vibrates with rage, his head shaking so much the earring dangling in his ear is constantly moving. It’s a fairly recent addition; everyone was shocked the day he came into work with it in. Alec isn’t exactly the accessories type. But he’d come waltzing into work with a simple, miniscule silver arrow dangling from his ear and blushed every time anyone asked him about it—which was constantly, of course, The Institute staff doesn’t do subtle, and absolutely no one was surprised to learn that it was Magnus who had given it to him as a birthday present. Simon hasn’t seen him a day without it in since.

“The situation with your mother you couldn’t possibly understand,” Robert says.

“Why, because I’m not an asshole?” Alec snaps, violently scooping ice into a whiskey glass.

Simon would object to that, but he’s not supposed to be listening and he doesn’t feel like getting shanked with the ice shovel.

“Because she’s a woman!”

It’s out there before even Robert himself realizes it, loud and sharp and resonating through the air like a crack of lightening. Alec stares at him, eyes wide, frozen and holding the bottle of whiskey midair. Time stops, and Simon feels a tremor in the air before everything comes crashing together again with Alec slamming the bottle on the counter.

“Alexander, I didn’t mean that,” Robert chokes out, wincing, his hand curling and uncurling.

Alec’s lips draw into a snarl.

“You absolutely did,” he hisses, and turns his back on his father, walking to the other end of the bar.

Robert’s frozen at the edge of the counter, lips moving slightly but no words coming out. He glances toward the kitchen doors like he’s searching for something, and meets Simon’s eyes when he turns back. Simon quickly ducks his head, grabbing the whiskey Alec’s neglected and pouring it into a glass. He puts it on the bar with the ticket and dashes back to the other end of the bar, desperate to get away from Robert and the black cloud he’s created around them.

 

* * * *

 

Later, while Alec is taking a break and Simon’s overseeing the bar in his absence, Isabelle walks up to him. The roar of the restaurant has quieted to a dull buzz and Simon wipes down the empty bar top with a rag, sweeping crumbs into a pile to be thrown away.

Isabelle taps him on the shoulder, and Simon turns, hit with a waft of her fading sweet perfume. _Jasmine or freesia,_ he thinks.

“What happened back there?” she asks hurriedly, eyes flicking toward the back door in case Alec comes swooping back in.

Simon bites his lip, turning back toward the bar and pretending to clean the spot he cleaned two minutes ago.

He eavesdropped because Isabelle asked him to—cryptically, but still—and also because he’s curious. Everyone is, it’s not like the Lightwoods _talk_ about Robert despite the publicity of the divorce. But the saying is that curiosity killed the cat, and Simon wishes he’d never listened. It’s one thing to hear rumors about how shitty a dad Robert is, but to actually see and hear it first hand—Simon is shaken, and he feels a wave of protective energy waft over him. Feeling protective over Alec? Simon never thought he’d see the day.

“They just talked about a staff meeting next week,” Simon says, still pretending to clean and not looking at her. “Robert wants to get to know everyone.”

Isabelle snorts, loud and ungraceful.

“That’s the same line he used on us,” she says, full of disgust.

“You think he’s telling the truth?” Simon asks.

Isabelle grabs his shoulder and yanks him toward her. The motion surprises Simon and he falls against her shoulder; she grabs his arm to keep him steady and forces him to look into her eyes. The room tunnels around Simon, Isabelle’s delicate features standing out against the blur of the world like the eye of a hurricane. Her lips are an inch away from him, and his cheek tingles against her breath.

“Don’t ever trust a word he says,” she says darkly, releasing his arm just as fast as she’d pulled him toward her and walking away.

Simon stands in a daze, the air around him still smelling like her shampoo and perfume and everything that reminds him of _Isabelle_ and he almost forgets the gravity of her tone, the fury in her eyes.

It all comes back when he looks out and sees a frowning Clary staring, eyes trained on the spot in front of him where Isabelle had just been.


	7. Part Seven

Part Seven

 

_“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” – Virginia Woolf_

It’s a Saturday night, and while Jace is at work and Isabelle is at some new club with friends, Alec sits on the couch with a worn copy of _The Secret History_ in his hands and the news playing softly in the background.

Isabelle tried to use every trick up her sleeve to convince Alec to come out with her, but he’s still smarting from Robert’s comment the night before and is more than happy to stay sequestered in his dark cloud of misery at home.

Not that Jace and Isabelle know anything about what happened last night, beyond Alec informing them all at closing of the employee meeting. And Alec intends to keep it that way—he doesn’t need a violent outburst of righteous fury from either of them. He knows they mean well, but more often than not they only make things worse.

Alec’s phone buzzes repeatedly on the coffee table, and he leans over to retrieve it, the book resting on his chest.

**MAGNUS: I had the most phenomenal bouillabaisse of my entire life before work. I’m stealing the recipe and forcing Maryse to let me make it a special next week.**

**MAGNUS: I know she has an aversion to clams but I would make sweet, deliciously dirty love to this stew.**

**MAGNUS: Just had another bite. Definitely coming.**

Alec turns bright red and barks out a laugh, thankful Magnus can’t see him.

**ME: I love clams, I don’t know what bouillabaisse is but I’m sure it’s incredible**

Magnus responds almost instantly.

**MAGNUS: It’s seafood in a stew of leeks and saffron and it’s the most divine thing you will ever eat.**

**MAGNUS: Besides me, of course.**

Alec chokes on air, throwing the phone into the corner of the couch and burying his face into a pillow, cheeks so hot he’s vaguely worried he’ll burn right through the pillowcase.

He’s obviously thought about _that_ , with Magnus. As both Isabelle and Jace point out so tactfully on multiple occasions, Alec’s been more than mildly obsessed with Magnus for a long time. They're whatever they are now—at least, a far cry more than just an awkward bartender and dazzling chef whose coworkers have a betting pool over when they’ll _actually_ end up together (which reminds Alec that he needs to ask Jace how much the pool is now)—and the idea of Magnus in his bed is striking, more so than it’s ever been. He’s surprised by how much he wants it, now that it’s possible. Before, he didn't believe he could actually _have_ someone like Magnus, so what was the point of trying? What was the point of even imagining it? It'll never be meant to be. Now, though… his feelings are both invited and encouraged, something Alec didn’t expect, and he has no idea what to do with that other than blush stupidly and try not to fuck it up.

They’ve been texting almost nonstop since their impromptu drinks and flirting at the restaurant to the point where Jace mimes vomiting every time he walks by them, but they haven’t been on a real date yet—a fact that Alec is hoping to change, and soon.

But for this moment, Alec is content to let Magnus embarrass him through the phone in the privacy of his apartment.

The privacy comes to a screeching halt after he types back _that’s great, I’m sure your stew will be even better_ and there’s a knock at his door. Alec puts his phone in his book to save his place and stands up. He looks at his reflection in the shiny glass of a framed print on the wall—Dali’s “The Great Masturbator”, the print given to Jace by a street vendor outside the MoMA as a bribe to get him to shut up about the wooden ducks the vendor was also selling.

His hair sticks up on one side, bags hang under his eyes and he has a hole in the knee of his gray sweats. Alec winces, reaching up in an attempt to flatten his hair and groaning when there’s another knock, insistent this time. Abandoning the fruitless task, Alec sighs and wrenches open the old door; it’s heavy and lets out an earth-shattering squeal every time its opened. Jace and Alec keep yelling at each other to fix it, but neither has mustered up the energy to actually do anything about it.

Maryse Lightwood stands on the other side, a plate covered in foil held in her hands like an offering.

“Uh, hey Mom?” Alec says, scratching the back of his neck. The last time Maryse had been to their apartment was when they’d moved in.

She holds the plate up a little higher.

"I made those peanut butter brownies you and Jace like," she says like she's Betty Crocker. Alec fights the urge to snort, though admittedly, those brownies  _are_ damn good.

“Can I come in?”

Alec steps aside wordlessly—she does pay his rent, after all. Maryse’s kitten heels clack against the hardwood floor as she walks inside cautiously. Alec’s embarrassed by the sight of the living room: piles of Isabelle’s clothes falling off the chairs, dirty shot glasses littering the coffee table from Jace’s latest “get together”, Alec’s stacks of books on the floor and empty coffee mugs on the entertainment center amid a jumble of cables and controllers.

She doesn’t comment on the mess. Instead, she sweeps aside a couple of the dirty glasses and sets the plate on the table before shifting a tilting mound of Isabelle’s shirts and settling on the couch. Maryse folds her hands in her lap and looks up at Alec, who in turn feels like he’s about to face down a dragon.

“Jace and Isabelle aren’t here,” Alec says when the silence becomes too much for him.

Maryse nods.

“I know,” she says. “I wanted to talk to you. We haven’t spoken much beyond work since that day in the office.”

Alec shrugs, not wanting to relive it again. He’s not proud of walking out like he did, and he knows he’s lost whatever points he had remaining with his father by doing so, but he had been filled with so much rage and disappointment that he couldn’t do anything except run away. He hadn’t been in that office in that time anymore—he was back in a different office and a very different version of himself, but the same unrepentant, disappointing father staring him down. The only difference between the current Robert Lightwood and the ghost of him was the anger in his eyes back then, and the sting of Alec’s skin.

“Didn’t feel much like talking,” Alec says, shoving his hands deep in the pockets of his sweatpants and looking out the window, the glow of the city streets below them vibrating in the falling night sky.

Maryse purses her lips, playing with one of the rings on her fingers.

“I think… I think I may have made a mistake,” she murmurs, so quiet Alec barely hears her.

There’s no way he misses the sorrow in her voice, though.

Maryse takes a visible breath, steeling herself for what she’s going to say next, and Alec feels the weight of it like sandbags on his shoulders. He lowers himself onto the only piece of furniture not hidden under Isabelle’s closet—Jace’s computer chair, which had mysteriously appeared from his room two days ago and hadn’t been moved back since. He sits in it backwards, his chin resting on the back of the chair.

“I don’t know what your siblings told you about what happened after you left,” she says, voice wobbling a little, “but your father was stunned. Completely silent, absolutely shocked that you would speak to him like that. We were all shocked. After he got over it, however, he started shouting. He was incredibly upset and confused as to why you wouldn’t hear him out.”

Alec opens his mouth to interrupt, rage bubbling under his skin like lava, but Maryse holds up a hand.

“Let me finish, before you start in,” she says.

Alec’s mouth closes with a snap and he sinks back into the computer chair.

“Isabelle interrupted his tirade, for lack of a better word, and told him he was ridiculous for believing that you would react any other way. Jace agreed, and they both started shouting at him about his, well, treatment of you, especially ever since you… came out. They were quite impressive, actually, I’m sorry you missed it.

“While they were all screaming at each other, I realized something. Isabelle and Jace mentioned moment after moment that he made you feel small and unworthy, and I… I didn’t know those moments existed. Because I was a part of them. I realized, even though they only mentioned your father and his blatant disappointment, that I was just as complicit as he was, but for my silence.”

Maryse takes another breath and looks Alec dead in the eyes.

“I made a mistake, the day you came out to us. I thought I was powerless. I let your father lead, I let him decide how to handle it, and I shouldn’t have. If I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have believed that both of your parents were ashamed of you. Because, Alexander, that is just not the truth.”

She leans over and grabs Alec’s hands from where they’re twisted in his lap.

“I am not ashamed of you,” she breathes. “If I was hard on you and you believed it was because of that, then I am truly sorry, my love. I was hard because I wanted to protect you. When you came out, it wasn’t a surprise to me. I’ve been predicting it since you were, oh, probably ten.”

Alec stares at her like she’s screaming at him in rapid Chinese. Maryse chuckles.

“What, you really thought I didn’t know?” Maryse asks through her laughter. “Alexander, I’m your mother. Mothers are much more in tune with our children than we seem to be.”

She sobers, her thumb stroking across Alec’s knuckles. Alec lets her, too stunned to speak.

“I should’ve told you,” she says. “I’m sorry for letting you believe that I was disappointed in you. I know how hard this world can be, Alec, and when you confirmed what I’d always known, what I’d tried to protect you from, I was so scared. I let your father do what he did—something I will _always_ regret, mind you—because I didn’t know how I could protect you anymore. If you were ready to tell the world who you were, there was nothing more I could do. And it was easier to let your father take control than face the fact that I could no longer keep you from the world’s cruelty.

“I saw how upset you were, I saw how he tried to defend himself against you and your siblings. And I realized I was wrong—I didn’t do my job as a mother after all, because I didn’t protect you from the one thing you needed the most protection from: him.”

She squeezes his hands tighter, like he’ll slip from her grasp, and he feels something wet on his cheek. Blinking, Alec realizes tears have been falling from his eyes without his approval, and he sniffs, suddenly embarrassed. Maryse only holds on tighter.

“No matter what your asshole of a father says, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you,” Maryse says fiercely, as terrifying as she is when shouting at the restaurant staff.

Alec grips her hands so hard his knuckles turn white. He’s afraid he’ll drown in the emotions threatening to burst inside him. Maryse leans farther forward, lifting herself completely off the couch, and crushes Alec to her chest, wrapping her thin arms around his neck. Alec’s arms curve around her waist in a tight hug and suddenly he’s ten years old again. He’s choking on feelings of shock and love and absolute _relief._ She doesn’t hate him; his own mother still loves him like mothers are supposed to. Maybe he doesn’t have to feel so alone.

Maryse kisses his hair, and her tears drip onto his head like rain.

“I love you, Alexander—gay, straight, blue or otherwise.”

 

* * * *

 

“What’s going on?”

It seems like every member of The Institute staff who’d worked that night is sitting at the bar. Bags and jackets lie in a haphazard lump on one of the tables, and Clary counts three or four uncorked bottles of wine on the bar.

She’d just finished emptying the remaining water carafes into the sink in the kitchen with the intent of leaving as fast as possible, her bed calling her name, but she’d heard the ruckus on the floor and come out to investigate.

“Shift drinks, new girl,” Maia says with a smirk. Behind Maia, with one arm slung around her shoulder, Bat salutes Clary with a glass of tequila.

“I… didn’t know that was a thing,” Clary says meekly.

Maia raises an eyebrow.

“You’ve worked here for, what, over a week, and you don’t know about shift drinks?” she asks incredulously.

“No?”

Clary has been so concerned with just staying afloat at this job that every night she's spent and exhausted, practically falling into bed the second she gets to the loft she shares with her mom in Williamsburg. Beyond that one night at the club Simon had dragged her to, Clary hasn’t spent much time socializing with her new coworkers. She hasn’t had the energy.

Tonight, however, she apparently doesn’t even get the choice.

“Sit down, new girl,” Lydia says, pulling the stool next to her out.

Cautious, Clary sits, slinging her bag over the back of the cushioned stool. She doesn’t have Simon as her work wingman tonight, so she’s not sure how to act. Her coworkers are enigmas—she’s completely out of her element.

“What do you drink?” Lydia asks, taking a sip of red wine.

“Uh, I don’t know, really,” Clary admits with a shrug.

Lydia smiles at her, not unkindly, and warmth coats Clary’s insides like honey.

“We’ll start with the basics, then,” Lydia says. She leans over the bar and shouts, “Jace! We need a tasting for new girl over here!”

 _My name is Clary_ , Clary thinks, but her nerves pool in her stomach like a lake filling with rainwater when Jace looks over at her.

They’ve talked on and off since the club, and he agreed to go to the gallery opening with her in a few days, but there hasn’t been much more of an opportunity for Clary to get to know him. Not when she works every day from now until eternity.

He smiles at her, all blinding white teeth, and she prays her face doesn’t match her hair.

“Know anything about wine?” Jace asks her conversationally, pulling a wine glass from the rack about his head.

“I know it comes from grapes?” Clary tries.

Lydia snorts into her wine glass. Jace chuckles, reaching under him where Clary knows the white wine is kept. He straights up, bottle in his grip, and deftly uncorks it with a flourish. He tips the lip of the bottle into the wine glass, pouring a generous taste, and sets the glass in front of Clary.

“This,” he says with bravado, “is a pinot grigio. Also known as the basic bitch of white wine, and usually drank by basic bitches.”

Clary giggles, reaching for the glass. She brings it to her lips with a jerk, but Jace stops her, gripping the stem of the glass with a slender finger.

“You have to savor wine,” he says seriously. “It’s not a shitty shot of Jose. Wine is… an _artform_.”

“Wow, I didn’t know it was such a serious issue,” Clary says, only slightly mocking.

“Don’t mock if you want to keep this job, biscuit,” a singong voice says behind her.

Clary turns in her stool to find Magnus pulling up the chair next to her, eyes tired and spiky hair drooping onto the red silk scarf tied around his forehead. His chef’s coat hangs open, revealing black jeans and a black mesh tank top that sparkles when it catches the dim light.

Magnus taps the bar with his fingers to get Jace’s attention.

“Dirty martini, emphasis on the dirty,” Magnus says, winking before turning back to Clary.

“What was that supposed to mean?” Clary demands.

Magnus takes the wine glass from her and swirls the contents, holding it up like a trophy.

“Here’s the thing about wine,” he says reverently. “It’s an experience to the drinker. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what kind of oak the barrels are or the tannins or the notes of the bouquet. Whoever tells you that it matters is talking out of their ass. The only thing that matters is how someone _feels_ when they drink wine.”

He drops another glittery wink her way and waves the wine glass before adding, “and of course, the delicious seafood, prepared by _moi_ , that you pair this particular wine with.”

“I don’t make it a habit of saying this,” Jace says, sidling over with Magnus’ martini in hand, “but Magnus is right.”

“Then what is this magical ‘experience’ I’m supposed to have?” Clary asks. “If these things aren’t supposed to matter.”

Jace takes the taste of pinot grigio from Magnus and downs it in one gulp. He pulls a new glass from the rack and holds up a finger before disappearing into the back hallway where Clary knows the door to the wine cellar is. Magnus rolls his eyes and exchanges a look over Clary’s head with Lydia.

Jace comes back up with a dark bottle in hand and puts it in front of her.

“This is a zinfandel,” he says, pulling his corkscrew from his pocket and peeling off the wax. “A red wine.”

He flicks the wax into the trash and pierces the cork with the corkscrew. Clary zones in on the vein popping in his forearm as he twists the corkscrew down.

“This particular bottle is from 2016, and has very ripe, juicy notes, particularly strawberries and black cherry,” Jace continues, pulling the cork out of the bottle with a pleasant pop.

He pours the wine into the new glass, the liquid ruby red and glittering, and places it in front of her. She watches the few bubbles remaining from pouring swirl to the bottom of the glass and pop into nothing.

Jace’s voice is as smooth as maple syrup as he says, “the grapes are grown in the Napa Valley, and come from some of the oldest vines in the Oak Knoll District. It’s a rather well-balanced zinfandel, especially due to the near-perfect conditions that year, and normally retails for eighty-five dollars a bottle.”

The price point floats over Clary’s head like a butterfly—she’s too wrapped in the sound of Jace’s voice, the flow of his words like an elegant dance. The way he and Magnus speak reminds Clary of good music; clever and challenging, but with a harmony, or in their case, voice inflection, that makes the words fluid and gets stuck in your head.

But it’s only Jace’s voice that makes Clary’s skin shiver.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asks when she remembers how to breathe. “You all just said none of that matters.”

“That’s the point,” Magnus says, not looking up from whoever he’s texting on his phone. “He’s distracting you from what’s there.”

Clary peels her eyes away from Jace’s pleased expression and looks down into her wine glass. She’s never thought of wine as anything other than wine—certainly not something that deserves to be revered like this. She picks up the glass like a wrong wind will break it instantly, and brings it eye level, the crimson liquid sloshing on the surface.

This world of wine and truffles and beautiful people The Institute shows her was never on her radar until now. Sure, she’s seen this world from the outside looking in, peering through the dark glass of the restaurant’s windows from the street and wondering what sort of person dines there; are they stunning? Are they dripping in diamonds and talk with the delicate air of sophistication?

It sneaks up on her now, caressing her skin with its tantalizing silk. She smells the richness in the wine’s aroma, like caramel or sweet syrup, and she takes her first slip slowly, reminding herself to _feel_. The liquid hits the tip of her tongue with a spark, and her tongue explodes in a vibrant kaleidoscope of bold tartness and smooth sweetness, like biting into a berry. She’s not at The Institute bar anymore—she’s in a vineyard, fingers trailing along the grapevines and the pure golden sun warming her from the inside out. Clary swallows, her mouth salivating from the fleeting ambrosia as the wine goes down, and realizes she’s closed her eyes.

When she opens them, Magnus still types away on his phone and Jace watches her expectantly, his fingers drumming on the bar and smiling.

“Well?” Jace asks when she takes another sip.

Clary swallows, the wine heavy on her tongue and sending a rush through her body. She smiles back at him.

“It’s perfect.”

           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me, updating again so quickly! God I love having my computer back. 
> 
> Come follow my shrieking at consulalexander.tumblr.com


	8. Part Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I suck at updating regularly.
> 
> Blame my life.
> 
> But if it helps, this chapter is twice as long as normal because the ships would not stop taking over?
> 
> If you still like me, follow me at consulalexander.tumblr.com

Part Eight

 

_“First we eat, then we do everything else.” – M. F. K. Fisher_

“You look uncharacteristically nice.”

Jace adjusts the collar of his blazer and sticks his tongue out at his brother’s smirking reflection in his mirror, Alec’s tall frame leaning against the door post and arms crossed over his chest.

“You laugh, but you’d better take notes,” Jace says, grabbing a comb from the drawer of his nightstand and raking it carefully through his blonde hair one last time. “Magnus is a stylish guy. It’s only a matter of time before he gets tired of your homeless-chic look. Emphasis on ‘homeless’.”

“I—what—I dress just fine!” Alec sputters.

Jace raises his eyebrows at the very unintentional holes in the kneecaps of Alec’s worn out jeans.

“I rest my case,” he says, turning back to the mirror.

“Where are you going?” Alec asks, desperate to change the subject.

“Clary’s mom is opening her new gallery in Chelsea tonight. There’s going to be a party to celebrate,” Jace says, messing with the blazer collar again. “Clary invited me to go with her.”

He’s still fussing with the collar, trying to get it to lay flatter than it already is. Alec pushes off from the door frame and stands behind Jace, placing his hand on top of Jace’s to stall his fidgeting.

“It looks fine, just relax,” Alec says.

Jace flushes, moving away and refusing to look at him. He sits down on the bed and begins to put on a pair of brown leather shoes. Alec raises an eyebrow.

“You okay?” he asks. “I’ve never seen you so nervous before a date.”

Jace pauses in tying his right shoe and sighs, shoulders dropping like he’s just released a heavy load. Alec sits tentatively on the bed next to him.

“I don’t know what it is about her,” Jace muses, voice so quiet he could be talking to himself. “She’s… different, from any other girl I’ve known.”

He thinks back to working with her, her red hair so vibrant he picks it out in every corner of the restaurant. She's like a magnet, Jace’s eyes following her whenever he catches a glimpse and unable to look away long after she disappears again. He can describe every note of her perfume, the strawberry colored lip gloss she wears every day, the way her green eyes light up when she laughs and how rapidly her hands move when she talks. He’s catalogued every tiny detail that makes up Clarissa Fray, pulling the file out in his head every time he needs a fix.

Jace is completely obsessed.

He turns on the bed so he’s facing Alec head on, and lets his mask fall away completely to reveal how absolutely wrecked and anxious he feels.

“I’m terrified I’m going to fuck this up like I do everything else,” he admits.

He has a history of being a fuck up, despite any objection Alec will probably come up with. But Alec wasn’t there, before, when Jace _really_ fucked things up. Before the Lightwoods, before New York, before in the house on the water.

Jace doesn’t make it a habit to talk about his father. His _real_ father, not Robert, though Robert isn't a shining example of father figures either. It’s not something he likes to remember, but when he’s seized with this panic he feels now, choking on it like bile, he’s forced to recall his bruised collarbone or a falcon’s broken neck or the general terror he felt each day as a child. Only a child, wondering every day what he did and figuring whatever it was, he probably deserved it.

Alec grabs Jace’s hand tightly in his. His eyes are the color of a stormy sky, and Jace shrinks back from the piercing gaze. Alec only holds his hand firmer in his grip.

“You don’t fuck everything up, and you won’t fuck this up, so don’t even think it,” he says like it’s a truth universally acknowledged.

“My track record says otherwise,” Jace says with a bitter laugh.

Alec rolls his eyes. “Hey, self-hatred is supposed to be my thing, get your own."

“Other people are allowed to brood, Alec.”

“No, brooding is definitely specific to gays.”

Jace mock-gasps. “Eighteen year old Alec would be shocked, blatantly making homosexual jokes like that.”

A small smile quirks at Alec’s mouth.

“Eighteen year old Alec was a much different person,” he says, almost fondly. The nostalgic haze in his eyes fades quickly, and Alec fixes his crystalline stare on Jace, raising his eyebrows pointedly.

“Eighteen year old Jace was a much different person, too,” he says, voice soft. “And so was fifteen year old Jace, and so was ten year old Jace. You’re not the person you once were and even then, you didn’t fuck everything up. I’m still here, right? We’re still here. You’re still our family, my family. You didn’t fuck that up—you _can’t_ fuck that up.”

Jace’s stomach warms the way it always does when he’s around Alec and they’re, for lack of a better word, _vibing_. When their whole bodies are in sync, so in tune to each other Jace swears he can read Alec’s mind sometimes—it's what Alec is doing with him now, speaking to every frightened and despairing thought in Jace’s head. Jace feels like he can fly as long as Alec is next to him, like he’s the missing puzzle piece to Jace’s soul.

“And you won’t fuck this up,” Alec says sternly. “I won’t let you.”

Invigorated, Jace claps Alec on the shoulder, his body abuzz with the gentle tingle of nerves.

“Only if I get to make sure you don’t screw things up for yourself, either,” Jace says, squeezing Alec’s broad shoulder.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Alec says stiffly.

Jace stands up, brushing imaginary dust off of his dark jeans and flashes a grin filled to the brim with snark.

“You totally do,” he guffaws as he floats out of the bedroom, feeling a thousand times lighter and his mind already fixated on Chelsea and a set of brilliant green eyes.

 

* * * *

 

When Jace leaves, Alec is acutely aware of how alone in the apartment he is. Isabelle is at work, Alec doesn’t expect Jace will be home until well past midnight, and the silence of the evening stretches out before Alec like a vast desert.

Normally, Alec is fine with solitude—in fact, he prefers it. But tonight it crawls on his skin like ants and he’s desperate to shake them off.

Alec pads into the living room, his too-big wool socks sliding along the hardwood floor and the edges of his frayed sweatpants dragging behind. He throws himself down on the couch and fumbles with his phone, tapping the screen to life.

He opens his messaging app, scrolling through a couple unread texts from Maryse about their breakfast plans next week—the ice is thawing, slowly but surely, and Alec is almost looking forward to it. After shooting off a quick confirmation of their plans, Alec continues to scroll and then pauses, his thumb poised over Magnus’ name. He hesitates for only a fraction of a second before mumbling “fuck it” to himself and calls him.

The phone rings shrill in his ear, and he’s about to talk himself out of it and hang up, embarrassed by how lonely and clingy he’s feeling, when Magnus answers after three rings, crooning with his velvet voice, “helloooo Alexander.”

“Hey,” Alec says, heart thudding in his throat.

Someone shouts in the background on Magnus’ end, the voice echoing like Magnus is in a tunnel.

“What can I do for you?” Magnus purrs, Alec straining to hear him as the telltale squeal of a subway train rattles over his voice.

Alec shifts on the couch and huffs, his breath tousling a lock of black hair that’s fallen onto his forehead.

“Um… what’re you doing?” Alec asks.

He tries to sound casual, but his voice pitches too high at the end and he winds up sounding like he’s stepped on a Lego.

“Just heading home from work,” Magnus says. “Raphael needed lunch off, and it was a shitshow, I didn’t get out of there until after four. I’m not pissed, though, because he has to work with your sister tonight instead and drama has been lacking lately.”

“Yeah,” Alec says idly, wrapping the drawstring of his sweatpants around his finger until the skin turns white.

“What station are you at?” Alec asks.

The confused frown in Magnus’ voice is audible. “Grand Central, why?”

 _That’s not too far_ , Alec thinks, and he blurts out, “I’m at my apartment. Want to hang out?”

There’s a long pause on the other end, so long Alec’s afraid Magnus hung up. But then his voice comes through, light and tinkling with barely suppressed glee.

“I don’t know where you live,” he says.

It takes Alec a moment to register what he’s saying—of course Magnus doesn’t know where he lives. Alec’s never been brave enough to invite him over, never had the opportunity when all they’ve done is skirt around each other for two years.

“Right,” Alec says after releasing a sigh of relief away from the phone. “Uh, East Village, you know where Ace Bar is? I’m right above it, number 306.”

“I know exactly where that is, I’ve had many a tequila shot there,” Magnus says teasingly.

“Great!” Alec exclaims, wincing at how loud his voice is.

“See you in twenty?” Magnus says.

“Yeah, see you then.”

Alec hangs up, staring off into space for a moment with a stupid, wide grin he’s incredibly aware of on his face, and he can’t bring himself to care. His heart flutters wildly as he imagines the formerly impossible concept of Magnus _here_ , in his apartment, surrounded by Alec’s things. A bright spot in a sea of grey.

 _His things._ A lightbulb goes off in his head, and he glances around the room at the disarray he and his siblings have left it in. He panics immediately, letting out a loud expletive as he launches himself off the couch and begins a harried, anxious clean. He has twenty minutes to at least fake like he has his shit together, and he can’t waste a moment.

 

* * * *

 

Jace is bored.

He isn’t bored of Clary’s presence, or the way her face brightens when she sees a piece she particularly likes, but he can only wander an art gallery and pretend to be interested for so long before he gets antsy.

He snags another glass of champagne from one of the rotating waiters—his third since they arrived an hour ago, the first practically forced on him the second he walked in the door by Clary’s excited mother, Jocelyn—and brings it to his lips just as Clary asks him— _again_ —“what do you think of this one?”

Jace swallows quickly, the bubbles burning his throat. He glances up at the painting in question; what looks like a white circle surrounded by black stares back at him. It isn’t that he doesn’t like or appreciate art—on the contrary, he could spend hours in the European paintings wing of the Met. But modern art is a different story. He’s never understood its appeal, and never bothered to try. He scarcely even recalls the bare bones terms he learned in high school art class, and he doesn’t consider a circle on a canvas as art worth understanding.

“It’s… it’s, um,” Jace struggles, squinting at the piece like it’ll suddenly bring him clarity if he stares at it hard enough. “It’s very, er… intense?”

“Yeah, the use of the negative space is powerful,” Clary agrees solemnly.

Jace breathes an uneasy sigh of relief. He doesn’t know how much longer he can talk out of his ass for—admittedly, Jace’s bullshitting skills are unparalleled, but even he has his limits.

They move on to the next painting, an abstract of whirling colors, and Clary shifts from foot to foot, barely reaching Jace’s shoulder despite the black heels she wears. Jace kind of adores how pocket-sized she is, how his entire body surrounds her.

She looks up at him, green eyes wide.

“What about this one?” she asks.

Jace looks at it and scrunches his nose, the champagne flute slick in his fingers. She’s looking at him with those expressive eyes, so hopeful, and cheeks flushed pink with excitement from the world she clearly belongs in around them. He wants to say something to please her and see her look at him with her face glowing like when she admires the paintings.

He scrutinizes the canvas and tries, “it’s… busy, I guess? A lot going on? I’m not sure what it’s trying to say, though I don’t know a lot about abstract art.”

“Oh,” she says, voice quiet and face falling softly.

Jace inwardly panics, wracking his brain over everything he could’ve possibly done to screw this up as she moves away from him, and then he sees the plaque beneath the piece:

_“A Life Together” by Clarissa Fray._

_Fuck fuck fuck, shit, fucking hell._

“No, wait, Clary, I mean—” he stutters, grabbing her arm like she’s about to fly away from him. “I didn’t know it was yours, I…”

“It’s okay,” Clary murmurs, though she’s the farthest from okay, her shoulders angled away from him and drawing in on herself. “It was just something I was trying, it’s not my usual style. I told my mom not to hang it, but she insisted. Said something about pushing my boundaries—you don’t have to like it. I’m not even sure I do.”

Jace doesn’t know how Clary could appear even smaller than she is normally, but it’s apparently possible. She’s turned away from him completely now, and Jace starts to wonder if this is about more than the painting.

“Hey, do you want to step outside for a second? It’s getting a little stuffy in here, don’t you think?” Jace says softly.

Clary finally meets his eyes and tips her head in a miniscule nod. Before she can protest, Jace takes her hand and leads them out the glass doors of the gallery entrance and onto the sidewalk. The sun is almost set and the last gasp of summer air settles over them, promising the arrival of autumn as it ruffles the coloring leaves of the planted trees. Jace guides them over to a green bench and sits down, hypnotized by the haze of the fading sun’s reflection over the Hudson. It reminds him of when he was a kid, when his father was still alive; the few moments of refuge he found when his father wasn’t home and he crept onto the beach to watch the sunset on the Atlantic ocean. Jace almost smells the salt now, almost hears the squawk of the gulls and the skitter of the crabs on the sand.

He almost misses it.

Clary sighs, breaking the silence.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that—criticism is a good thing.”

Jace shakes his head quickly. “I wasn’t criticizing you—look, if I’m being honest, modern art isn’t really my thing. I don’t know what to say about it. It’s not you or your piece. I’m sure it kicks abstract art ass. I just don’t know what you want me to say about it.”

Clary huffs out a small laugh.

“I don’t even know what I want you to say about it,” Clary muses.

Jace watches her as she stares out over the river, hands gripping the edge of the bench. The breeze tickles her hair against her delicate chin, and she’s biting the soft pad of her lip, lost in something Jace wishes he knew about.

It occurs to him, suddenly and jarring like being electrocuted, that he really doesn’t know that much about Clary.

And, in return, she probably doesn’t know that much about him.

It startles Jace how much he wants her to know, how much he’s reminded of what he’s escaped as they sit there and watch the night grow over the water. He wants her to know _everything,_ and he wants to know just as much about her.

_What is it about you?_

He thinks back to Clary’s painting, and her strange shame of it, and then he’s pulled back into memory; his fingers tinkling the piano and the rush of joy he felt when he perfected a new song; a beautiful falcon, its feathers glossy and rich, swooping through the air and nipping his ear with affection. They're tinged with shadows, though-- shrouded in darkness as he also remembers the smashed ivory keys on the wooden floor and the falcon dangling from his father’s hands.

The plaque below Clary’s painting runs over and over in his head like a song, intertwining with the memories of his father’s house before he realizes he may have something to say about the piece after all.

“Have I ever told you about how Maryse and Robert adopted me?” Jace says, something clenching in his gut.

Clary looks over at him curiously.

“No,” she says.

Jace clears his throat, drumming his fingers anxiously on his knee as he thinks about where to start. To his surprise, Clary’s hand sneaks over to his leg and folds her fingers in his, gripping his hand tightly and smiling at him—a small smile, just the corners of her pink mouth turned up, but still warming his heart all the same.

“My mom died in childbirth,” he begins. “There were a lot of complications with her pregnancy, I guess—it took my parents a long time to conceive, and the few times before me they’d managed to get pregnant ended in miscarriages. I found out from Maryse years after they adopted me that I was a super high-risk pregnancy. My mom hadn’t been expected to make it giving birth to me, but she’d wanted a baby so badly she was willing to try.

“After she died, my dad kind of lost it. I think a part of him blamed me for her death. He was… well, long story short, he wasn’t a nice guy. He taught me a lot, he gave me a sense of duty and motivation. But he wasn’t warm and fuzzy.

“He died in a car accident when I was ten. We lived in Rockaway Beach, right on the ocean, and the day he died I’d ran down to the beach to practice surfing. I wasn’t supposed to go down there without his permission, but the waves were really good that day and he was at the store so I decided it would be okay.

“It definitely wasn’t. He came home and found me walking out of the waves. He was so angry—he hit me a few times right there on the beach.”

Jace pretends he doesn’t hear Clary’s sharp intake of breath and plows through the rest of his story.

“He locked me in my room and went out to a bar a few miles down the road. I didn’t know what had happened until the next morning when Maryse came to the house and unlocked my door. He’d gotten in a drunk driving accident on the way home from the bar; he was hit head on and died immediately. He was also the drunk driver. The other person was in a coma but managed to pull through after a month or so, and there was a nasty battle in court over it that Maryse and Robert had to deal with, but that was later.

“Anyway, I didn’t really have any other family to speak of. My parents were both only children and one set of grandparents were dead; I had a grandma in Wales I think but she was pretty much senile and unable to take care of me. Maryse and Robert were good friends of my parents, though they’d distanced themselves from my dad a bit after my mom died. But they had a summer house really close to ours, so every year from when I was five or something on, I’d hang out with Alec every day and basically live at their place. It was the only time a year my dad would loosen the leash he had on me, because he knew Maryse and Robert were watching. So when he died, it made sense that they were the ones to take me in.”

Jace pauses and chances a glance at Clary; she’s listening solemnly, her face intent on his and she squeezes his hand encouragingly.

He knocks his knee with hers and says, “I’m telling you this because your painting was called ‘A Life Together’, right? Maybe I don’t know much about abstract art, but I do know about life. I know that Maryse and Robert saved my life that day. Without them, I would have nothing. My father wasn’t a family—the Lightwoods are. They’re my family. And your painting was so colorful and intense; I think it reminds me that my life with Alec and Isabelle, Maryse and Robert and Max, is a hundred different shades of color and emotions and memories, just as my life with my father was. All our lives together. I think I get it now.”

He goes quiet, his hand clammy in hers and he wants to draw away, suddenly uncomfortable with how introspective he’s gotten, but Clary won’t let him. She grips his hand tight and brings it to her mouth, making him start when she lays a soft kiss on his knuckles.

“Thank you for sharing with me,” she says, her eyes earnest on his. “Thank you for making my art mean something. Thank you for trusting me.”

Something in her eager words splits Jace’s heart open and fills it with air, and he’s floating high above the city.

“Do you trust me?” he breathes out, the words spilling from his mouth.

After a moment, Clary nods, and that’s the only invitation Jace needs. He leans forward and brushes his lips tenderly against hers, just a whisper of flesh on flesh. He’s testing, waiting, making sure this is something they can both do, and then Clary presses her lips harder against his. Her lips are a soft, pleasant pressure and though it’s chaste it’s the best kiss Jace has ever had. He could sit here for hours, just kissing her, and be content for the rest of his days. He feels like Cupid in Psyche’s arms.

When they pull away, Clary stares at him like he’s the most stunning painting in the world, and he’s soaring.

 

* * * *

 

“Pick up!”

“Picking up!” Isabelle shouts, stacking two plates of filet mignon and an extra side of polenta on her left arm and grabbing a bowl of ceviche in her right. She barely spares Raphael a glance as she turns and walks through the kitchen doors, though she feels his dark eyes on her back as he’s plating the next table’s food.

She pastes on a smile as she drops the food to a group of businessmen with slicked back hair and gaudy ties, trying not to wince when the larger one looks her up and down with a greasy sneer. She hates this part of serving—even in a restaurant as upscale as The Institute, she can’t escape feeling cheaper than a penny sometimes. The fake smiles, the forced acceptance of unwanted eyes and flirting because she can’t do anything to stop it here.

She darts away from the table as fast as she can and takes refuge behind the bar.

Maia laughs at her, stirring an old fashioned.

“Hiding from Raphael?” she asks, smirking.

“What? No!” Isabelle sputters, too defensive and reminding herself unnervingly of her brother. “Those creepy business guys at fifteen were checking me out.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Maia says knowingly. “And you’re hiding from Raphael.”

Isabelle rolls her eyes, electing not to answer and casting her gaze across the restaurant. It’s a slow night—barely a third of the tables are full and they sent Helen home an hour ago. Her gaze lands on the imposing kitchen doors as they swing open to reveal Raphael dropping off a side of rolls in Simon’s service station, a bandana wrapped around his head and beads of sweat dripping on his neck. He says nothing to her and her nothing to him—the new normal that is ‘them’.

They hadn’t even been together, really, and that’s why Isabelle loved it so much. The rest of the world assumed what they were and Isabelle let them, but only she and Raphael knew the truth of it and that was what made it so enthralling. Raphael loved her, but it was a different kind of love, one free of expectation and physicality and allowing Isabelle to just _be_. Their pulses rose in the clubs they went to every night rather than the beds they didn't share, the warmth of the lights heavy on her skin and the comfort of Raphael’s presence somewhere at the bar as she danced the night away cocooning her.

She misses that freedom so much it hurts sometimes.

But then she remembers why they loved each other, the darkness and acidity that came with that love, and that spark of nostalgia for the life she once lived dies, Raphael its ghost in the kitchen haunting her.

Isabelle’s saved from her dark thinking and Maia’s taunting when Simon bounds up to them, all smiles.

“Finished my side work,” he says. “Laundry’s sent out, salt and pepper filled, and I left Maryse a note about ordering more silverware.”

Simon’s only just started serving, after being in what Isabelle and Jace affectionately call ‘hosting purgatory’ for the past six months or so, but he’s a natural and on top of his game every shift she works with him—a trait she appreciates. Isabelle smiles at him.

“Thanks,” she says.

“You done? You want a drink?” Maia asks, waving a bottle of vodka in Simon’s face.

Simon laughs and shakes his head. “Nah, I can’t, I have to go find someone to watch my cat tomorrow.”

Maia raises her eyebrow.

“You got a cat?” she asks, incredulous.

“Yeah,” Simon says, nodding enthusiastically. “My bandmate Eric’s sister’s cat had kittens and Eric took one but his roommate found out he’s allergic so Eric gave her to me. Her name is Leia.”

“You named your cat after Princess Leia?” Isabelle says with loud snort. “You’re such a stereotype.”

“And proud of it. Anyway, I only got her yesterday and she’s super tiny and the band has like two gigs tomorrow that I can’t miss so I need someone to watch her,” Simon says.

“I’ll do it,” Isabelle offers, because she’s feeling generous and she has the day off tomorrow with nothing to do; playing with a kitten all day sounds better than sitting in her apartment alone with her thoughts.

Simon stops and stares at her. His jaw visibly drops and Isabelle bites back a giggle.

“You will?”

“Sure,” Isabelle says with a shrug and flip of her black ponytail. “I have zero plans.”

Simon looks at her like she’s not quite real.

“W-wow! Thanks, Isabelle, that would—that would be great,” he says, eyes wide behind his round glasses. He reminds Isabelle of a yellow lab; adorably dopey.

“You can stop with the aweing, Simon, I’m not a statue at the Met.”

Simon snaps his mouth shut and leans against the bar, propping his elbow on the counter and pretending to look casual. Isabelle can’t help but laugh.

 _What about a nice boy,_ a voice that sounds suspiciously like Maryse whispers in her head as she laughs at Simon. He fits the bill, entirely: he’s attentive, kind, cute, and makes Isabelle smile from simply existing. But there’s that gnawing in her heart that craves that bite, the edge that Simon can’t give her. It’s like staring over a cliff and anticipating the adrenaline rush if you just take  _one more step_ and fall through the air.

It might kill you and you can’t help but chase it.

Isabelle wonders what Simon sees when he looks at her. She knows he’s in love with Clary—she knew the second she saw them together—but he brightens like a star when Isabelle looks his way, like he’s stunned backwards and forwards that she’s even gracing him with her attention. She wonders if he’d still worship the girl he doesn’t know, the girl she was before he was hired. The girl who didn’t know when to stop. The girl who chased the high.

She hears someone singing in Spanish from the kitchen and thinks of Raphael.

_They both chased the high._

“I just really appreciate it,” Simon says, bringing her out of her reverie.

Isabelle nods, taking a sip of her water stashed around the corner.

“It’s no problem,” she says around her straw. “I love animals. I’m happy to help.”

Simon beams at her. _Definitely a star_.

“Cool! Can you come over around 11? I’ll text you the address.”

Isabelle smiles.

“I’ll be there,” she says, and she’s surprised by how much she means it.

 

* * * *

 

Alec almost has a panic attack when there’s a knock at his door.

_Chill out, idiot. It’s not like you’ve never hung out with Magnus before._

_Never here, though. What if he hates it?_

Even his own mind is a traitor.

Alec combs his hair quickly with his fingers and examines himself in the Dali painting, a sense of déjà vu falling over him. He plays with the hair flopped onto his forehead until it resembles something a bit less 2000s and looks down at his clothes, cursing when he realizes that he was so busy rapid-fire cleaning he’d forgotten to change.

He hopes Magnus is a fan of the worn-in look, because he doesn’t have time for anything else.

There’s another knock, a touch more tentative than the last, and Alec takes a deep breath before opening the door. Magnus stands on the other side, one hip cocked and the hallway lights glinting off the various gold necklaces around his neck. He grins at Alec crookedly, lips painted a maroon so dark they’re almost black, his white teeth stark against them.

“Dressed up for me, I see,” he teases, eyes sparkling.

Alec’s face heats up.

“Sorry, I was… doing a few things and forgot to change.”

Magnus waves his words off like they’re an annoying fly buzzing around his head.

“Oh please, darling, it’s fine, your ass looks fantastic in sweatpants so don’t you dare apologize,” he says, winking and ignoring Alec’s bright red cheeks as he sashays into the apartment.

Magnus plunks the bag he’s carrying on Alec’s coffee table and turns to face him. His eyes scan the room hungrily, training his eyes on every corner like he wants to soak it all up. Alec fidgets, his fingers pinching the pockets of his sweats.

“Sorry it’s a mess, Jace and Isabelle live here too and cleaning isn’t exactly their first priority.”

Magnus raises an eyebrow as he continues to look around, his body drawn over to the books. His finger, nail painted a stark black, runs over the spines reverently as he reads each title.

“Who has all the books?” he asks, pulling out a copy of _Alice in Wonderland_ with a red cloth cover and flicking it open.

His kinetic energy buzzes around the room like a cloud of bees pleasantly humming; it pulses through Alec’s body and he’s glued to Magnus’ every move, from his gliding stride to how he apparently has to touch _everything_ around him. He picks everything up, runs his fingers over every surface, scrutinizes every book or piece of art on the wall. It’s oddly charming, but still somehow manages to make Alec choke on his nerves.

Alec shoves his hands into his pockets, having no idea what to do with them, and shrugs.

“Some of them are Jace’s, but most are mine,” he says.

Magnus puts _Alice in Wonderland_ back on the shelf and exchanges it for Jace’s _Good Omens_ , opening it to a dog-eared page.

“You read this much?” Magnus asks, a note of wonder to his voice as he scans the bookshelves lining an entire wall of their living room and the piles of books teetering on the floor.

Alec shrugs again. “I was a lit major. And you haven’t even seen all of them—I have another two bookcases in my room.”

Magnus waggles his eyebrows, waving around a collection of Sappho’s poetry.

“Is that an invitation?” he teases, and Alec knows he’s gone completely red.

Alec stammers out a response that can’t possibly resemble English and Magnus chuckles.

“Relax, angel, I was kidding,” he says.

Alec’s stomach swoops at the term of endearment. He never thought he could be someone who uses pet names in relationships—not that this is even a relationship, and not like he’s had enough experience to even know that about himself, either—but the ease in which Magnus lets the endearments fall from his lips on a daily basis and the rush Alec gets whenever they’re directed at him has him reconsidering everything he’s ever thought about it.

“My mom always used to say that the window to a person’s soul could be found in their favorite book,” Magnus says, migrating to the stacks by the couch and picking up the copy of _The Secret History_ that Alec was reading when Maryse came over. “So what’s yours, lit major? Which, by the way, I can’t believe I didn’t know this about you. The brooding makes so much sense now.”

Alec barks out an embarrassed laugh, remembering his earlier conversation with Jace, though inside he’s reeling. Magnus hadn’t known he was a lit major, a fact Alec doesn’t try to hide, and he realizes how little they know about each other. Magnus reacted positively to this, but what about the stuff Alec _does_ keep from the world? What if Magnus learns something about Alec that he doesn’t like?

 _The first step is answering his question_ , a voice sounding an awful lot like Isabelle murmurs in his head.

Books, yes. He can talk about books for days at a time. Books are good, books are safe.

“Truly?” Alec says, a small smile playing at his lips.

Magnus nods.

“Of course. And don’t give me something like _On the Road_ because you think it will impress me. Every douchebag in America says Kerouac is their favorite.”

“I hated that book, actually,” Alec says with a laugh, the air around him lighter and each breath he takes sweeter the more they talk.

He crosses the room to stand next to Magnus and scans through the author names—because he _absolutely_ has his bookshelf in alphabetical order—until his eyes land on one book, bound in a soft cover similar to _Alice in Wonderland_.

Alec plucks it off the shelf and holds it out to Magnus.

“ _From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler_ ,” Magnus reads, brow furrowed. “I’ve never read it.”

Magnus takes the book and flips it open to the first page, his manicured nail smoothing the edge. Alec shifts his weight from foot to foot.

“I read it when I was ten,” Alec says. “It’s about two kids who decide to run away and live in the Met.”

He laughs a little to himself, shaking his head. “I always envied them. I think that’s why I like it—they just took their freedom. I wanted to be right next to them in that museum.”

He meets Magnus’ gaze and starts at the way Magnus’ eyes are shining at him, like he’s something other than human. Something to admire; Alec fidgets under his gaze, unwilling to admit that he deserves the awe.

“Window into the soul,” Magnus murmurs quietly, closing the book with a snap.

He puts the book back on the shelf and smiles brilliantly, dazzling Alec like he’s stared too long into the sun.

“Well…” Magnus says, arms crossed over his chest. “I’m here. You wanted to ‘hang out’, so what do you want to do?”

Alec is grateful for the distraction, but the air gets heavier as he realizes, _right_ , he needs an actual _plan_.

He glances at the digital clock on Jace’s stereo system in the corner and remembers he hasn’t eaten since noon. Magnus had said something about getting off work late; Alec is willing to bet he hasn’t eaten either. Food—that’s a good, safe idea. Isabelle would be proud.

“Are you hungry?” he asks. “I was thinking about making something earlier.”

Magnus’ eyebrows shoot so high they almost have liftoff.

“You cook?” he says, stunned.

“Someone had to learn. You can’t exist on takeout alone, and if I cook that means Isabelle stays out of the kitchen. She’s terrifying in there.”

Magnus laughs, and winks at Alec. “Cooking for a chef? That’s brave.”

Alec’s stomach drops; _shit_ , he didn’t think about that.

God, he’s a moron.

“Color me intrigued,” Magnus continues like Alec isn’t about to have a complete breakdown. “What were you thinking of making?”

_Just breathe._

“Pasta—I have a go-to recipe for _penne alla vodka_ that I make a lot for Isabelle and Jace.”

Magnus settles himself on the couch, legs crossed lazily and his body draped against the back. Alec swallows and has to look out the window above his head.

“Sounds perfect to me,” Magnus says.

Alec pushes his hair back nervously.

“Don’t expect that,” he says. “Nothing I make is going to compare to your food.”

Magnus rolls his eyes. “I eat _my_ food all the time darling, I adore the idea of eating someone else’s cooking for once. I’m sure whatever you make is delicious.”

Alec blushes and mumbles a ‘thank you’ before escaping into the adjoining kitchen, turning the light on and putting a pot of water on to boil.

“The stereo has Bluetooth—put on some music?” Alec calls, needing something beside his anxiety to permeate the room.

Magnus obliges, the smooth beat of a Dennis Lloyd song thrumming from the speakers just as Alec comes back into the room with two glasses of wine—a cabernet-dominant blend that had been sent to the restaurant for sampling.

He hands a glass to Magnus, who beams at him and takes a sip. Alec goes back into the kitchen to start the sauce, drinking the wine as he goes and his body getting looser. Magnus shouts to him from his lounge on the couch, going into detail about the horrors of the lunch rush. Alec listens dutifully as he chops onions and garlic, pouring them into a pan with vodka and letting it reduce. He adds a can of pureed tomatoes, salt, pepper, and spices, pours in some cream and decides at the last minute to chop up what’s left of the pancetta in the fridge and sear it. Magnus’ story has morphed from work to a night at the club recently with his friend Catarina, and Alec laughs in all the right places as he throws the penne into the boiling water and chops up some parsley and basil for garnish.

Alec’s struck at the domesticity of it all, but more than that even he’s struck by how _easy_ this feels. Making them dinner, listening to Magnus talk about his day—there’s something so natural about it that it takes Alec’s breath away. He never knew he could have this, but here it is, sitting on his couch covered in gold jewelry and waving a wine glass around in the air.

He’s filled to the brim with emotion, and he can’t contain it. Abandoning the stove, he downs the rest of his wine and walks back into the living room. Magnus cuts himself off and glances at him curiously.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

Alec purses his lips and says, “I just… I just need to know. Because we’ve been talking _a lot_ recently and things have been… happening… and, well, is this a date, maybe? I kind of feel like it could be? Not that that was what I was planning when I called you, or maybe it was, I don’t really know to be honest, but we haven’t been on a date yet and I think I’d like to and—”

Magnus holds up a hand to stop him, an amused smirk on his face.

“You’re rambling,” he says sweetly, and Alec curses the one glass of one wine that decided to loosen his lips.

Alec snaps his mouth shut and winces.

“You get it,” he says weakly, and Magnus nods, smile growing wider.

He sets his glass on the coffee table and pillows his head with his hand, his elbow propped on the arm of the couch.

“It could be considered a date, yes,” Magnus says slowly, his fingers drumming against his cheek, “but a date also has one requirement that hasn’t been fulfilled yet.”

Alec frowns, confused.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Alec swears Magnus looks almost _nervous_ as he bites his lip and asks him, eyes wide with trepidation:

“Kiss me?”

Alec forgets how to breathe.

He’s thought about this thousands of times since he met Magnus—he probably thought about it within the first hour of knowing him—but the moment is here and he forgets all motor functions, his brain short circuiting.

It isn’t his first kiss, not even with a man, but it’s the first one that counts, and he’s scared out of his mind but more than anything he  _wants_ and it’s this want that propels him forward without a second thought. He gets down on his knees so he’s level with Magnus seated on the couch; Magnus’ face is already so close, his shallow breathing caressing Alec’s face. This is a _moment_ , with a capital M, and Alec hopes they both know it.

“Well?” Magnus breathes out, the whisper hanging between them, and Alec cups Magnus’ chin in his hands before bending forward and kissing him gently.

Magnus’ lips are just as soft as they look, the softest lips he’s ever kissed, and they’re sweet like wine and lipstick. He probably has the dark makeup on his lips and chin but he couldn’t care less. He’s drowning attached to Magnus’ lips and he never wants to come up for air.

Magnus grips the front of Alec’s shirt and pulls him closer, settling his arms around his neck and his knees bracketing Alec's hips. He pushes Alec’s mouth open with his tongue, deepening the kiss, and Alec gasps into his mouth, his thumb stroking against Magnus’ jaw. Magnus bites his lower lip lightly and presses one, two, three short kisses against his lips before diving back in with his tongue. Alec is dizzy with desire, kissing Magnus fiercely and sucking Magnus’ lip lightly. Magnus breathes sharply and murmurs " _Alexander_ " with a hum of pleasure. Alec files that move away for later, and moves to draw Magnus in closer when he hears the sizzle of the pot boiling over and hot water spilling onto the burner.

Alec curses and breaks the kiss, leaving a dazed Magnus on the couch as he dashes to the kitchen to pull the pot off the burner. He drains the pasta and tosses it back in the pot, coming back into the living room with a sheepish grin. Magnus is still unmoving on the couch, his fingers touching his bottom lip.

“Is it a date now?” Alec asks with a grin, and there’s nothing else to do but for both of them to laugh, lips red from kissing and possibility burning bright.


	9. Part Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes it took a month and a half but shit gets deep? If you want to yell at me my Tumblr is consulalexander.tumblr.com

Part Nine

 

_“Look at your waiter's face. He knows. It's another reason to be polite to your waiter: he could save your life with a raised eyebrow or a sigh.” – Anthony Bourdain_

Simon’s apartment is like a bat cave.

Oddly, it’s exactly what Isabelle expected when she’d arrived at Simon’s apartment in Prospect Heights that morning, Simon appearing at the door in a whirlwind of anxiety and fast-talking, his hands flailing and panic in his eyes. Isabelle had found it so adorably _Simon_ that she was struck dumb. Simon’s brown curls were shoved back from his forehead in a disarray like he’d been running his hands through it, and he wore a black “Rock Solid Panda” (his current band name, Isabelle suspected) t-shirt with black skinny jeans. Isabelle hadn’t seen Simon outside his work clothes often; she was taken aback by his exposed arms, surprisingly strong and toned, and the way the t-shirt stretched across his chest snugly. Despite his frantic hand movements and anxious speed talking, she found him… adorable and _very_ distracting.

She’d pushed aside her suddenly confusing thoughts—this is Simon, since when had he ever been _adorable_ to her—when he shouted instructions at her and ran out the door. Standing alone in his small apartment, she turned and immediately stared down a teeny gray cat with massive blue eyes—honestly, the cutest kitten Isabelle had ever seen. Leia gawked back at her from her seat on the couch, curled into a ball and her head sticking out from a mound of fluff.

She spent most of the day sitting on the couch with Leia, who’d quickly given Isabelle her trust when she realized Isabelle wasn’t planning on moving and made her lap into a new bed, her body so little that Isabelle barely even knew she was there. She took advantage of Simon’s vast collection of downloaded movies and TV shows and watched hours of  _Bones_ and _Grey's Anatomy._ When she got tired of that, she sat and read the book she'd brought, stolen from Alec's room, and stopping only to get take out from Chuko around six.

Now, it’s after nine p.m. and Isabelle gets bored easily, so she closes the book and stands up, upending Leia from her lap and stretching.

Simon’s apartment is very small, but clean for a boy—it’s cleaner than her own apartment with her two brothers, that’s for sure—and dark. Heavy black curtains hang over the windows and most of his furniture is dark red, navy or black, save for the heather grey L-shaped couch she’s been sitting on shoved against the wall. There’s a large amp in the corner opposite the couch and next to the TV stand, with a mess of cords on top and two controllers balancing precariously on them. A rickety table of painted black wood that matches the TV stand sits in front of the couch, holding a small stack of comic books and a couple graphic novels that Isabelle flips through curiously. Against the wall next to the small kitchen are two guitar stands, one holding a red electric guitar and the other empty. Everything feels cramped; Simon has a _lot_ of stuff in this tiny space.

Isabelle blows air between her lips and looks around, tapping her fingers against her hip. She isn’t sure when Simon’s going to be back—he gave her a very ballpark response when he left, unsure of how long the last gig would run and if the band would want to get drinks afterward or not—and she doesn’t know what to do.

Isabelle isn’t very good with being bored; Maryse told her that as a kid Isabelle was completely unable to sit still, once moving so much in her seat at a restaurant that she knocked the table over. She gets tired of most movies half an hour in, and skips through hundreds of songs while she’s listening to music on the subway.

She frowns, leaning down and scooping Leia into her arms. Leia burrows into the crook of her elbow and purrs like an engine. Scanning the space, her eyes fall to the ajar door opposite the little kitchen. Isabelle feels like she’s in Alice in Wonderland, cat tucked in her arm and exploring an odd dark hole.

Or, in this case, Simon’s bedroom.

The first thing Isabelle sees when she steps into the bedroom is the giant cat tree shoved in the corner, Simon’s work apron dangling over one of the fuzzy beams. Right above it on the wall is a hand painted band poster for Rock Solid Panda, the same design that was on the t-shirt Simon wore when he left.

His room is draped in navy and maroon much like the rest of his apartment, and he has another set of the blackout curtains drawn shut over his window. Isabelle wonders if he ever sees the sun—it would explain how pale he always is. Simon could give Alec a run for his money in vitamin D deficiency.

Isabelle crosses the room, Leia tight in her arms, and opens the curtains, staring down at the alleyway below. Leia mewls softly against her chest, and Isabelle presses a kiss to her small soft head. She turns back around and looks at the art hanging on the walls: a few other hand painted band posters with names like “Millennium Lint” or “Champagne Enema”, a framed panel from a Spiderman comic, some photos of Simon and Clary and a large framed picture of Simon with two women above the full size bed that dominated most of the room. Isabelle’s never met Simon’s mother or sister, but the women in the photo have the same brown hair and kind brown eyes as him, so she assumes that’s who the women staring down at her are.

She knows she shouldn’t be snooping around, but she’s always been too curious for her own good. She moves toward the corner where an acoustic guitar sits on a stand with a mountain of sheet music piled on the floor. Isabelle adjusts Leia in her arms so she’s higher up on her shoulder and picks up a page.

It’s covered in cramped writing: cords and lyrics mapped out then crossed off, notes buried in the margins and a coffee stain on the corner.  Isabelle squints to read the title of the song and raises her eyebrows in surprise.

_Green-Eyed Monster._

_Stop it, Isabelle, this isn’t your business._ Her conscience reminds her of Alec, but also like her brother, she’s adept at tuning it out. She looks over the lyrics, Leia trying to make a break for it over her shoulder, and jumps when the door opens, the sheet music fluttering to the ground as she shrieks. Leia falls off her shoulder, landing on all fours and giving Isabelle an affronted look before trotting over to Simon and weaving between his legs.

Simon stands in the doorway with a guitar case slung over his shoulder, eyebrows to his hairline.

“Uhh… whatcha doing?” Simon asks, confused.

Isabelle turns bright red—an action she’s not used to.

“I was just…” Isabelle searches for an excuse and comes up with nothing.

She sighs in defeat. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be looking at your stuff—I just got a little restless. I saw the sheet music on the ground. Your song is really good though! It’s about Clary, right?”

Simon almost drops his guitar.

“I—what? No! No! It’s just a girl, not anyone special, it’s universal emotions you know, being a songwriter is about tapping in to those feelings everyone can relate to and everyone gets jealous, it’s not about a specific person that’s ridiculous—”

Simon talks so fast his words blend together and Isabelle cuts him off.

“So,” she says, arms crossed over her chest, “the ‘redhead with paint on her hands’ _isn’t_ Clary, and the ‘guy that’s bigger than me/golden hair and impossible dreams’ _isn’t_ Jace and this song _doesn’t_ have anything to do with Clary and Jace being into each other?”

Simon's speechless for maybe the first time in his life.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Isabelle says, sitting down on the edge of his bed. “Why don’t you tell her how you feel?”

Simon opens and closes his mouth like a fish against the glass of its fishbowl, and finally shrugs and sighs, slipping the guitar off his shoulder and leaning it against the wall.

“We’ve been best friends since we were basically in diapers, I can’t just _tell her_ ,” he says, shrugging again hopelessly. “It’ll ruin everything. Besides, she likes Jace. I can’t compete with that.”

Isabelle frowns, flipping her hair over one shoulder. “Jace isn’t some Greek god, he’s just a man. You have just as much to offer as he does. She could surprise you.”

“Are you seriously telling me to steal your brother’s girl?”

Isabelle rolls her eyes.

“First of all, Clary doesn’t belong to anyone but herself,” she says sternly, crossing her legs. “Second of all, last I checked she’s not his girlfriend, they’re just flirting. And third, are you going to spend the rest of your life cowering to people like Jace who you mistakenly believe are better than you? Come on, Simon, you’re a catch. If you live your life not going after what you want, you’ll only have regrets and what-ifs. If Clary’s a real friend, and she doesn’t feel the same way, she won’t let that affect the great friendship you have. But if she does feel the same way… don’t you owe it to yourself to at least try?”

Simon throws his hands up in the air in despair and glares at her with no real venom.

“Why don’t we talk about _your_ love life?” Simon says a little desperately.

Isabelle winces, her hand balling into a fist against the comforter.

“Let’s not,” she says.

“Why not? You’re dissecting mine, so it’s only fair.”

“Yours is up for debate. Mine isn’t.”

“Who made that rule, I definitely didn’t. How’s Raphael?”

Isabelle glares at him.

“Dead to me, next?” she snaps. Her skin starts to tingle the way it always does when Raphael’s name is brought up, like she’s a snake desperate to shed its skin.

Simon shakes his head and leans against the door.

“You came into my room, picked up a song that you weren’t supposed to read, and decided to interrogate me about my biggest secret. It’s my turn,” he says. “Raphael definitely isn’t dead to you. I see the way you look at him—your eyes follow him around the room. He does it too. So why aren’t you still together?”

Simon has a point and Isabelle hates him for it. She doesn’t want to touch the locked box around her heart that Raphael resides in, has purposefully avoided opening it for as long as possible, but there’s an aura about Simon that envelopes her in comfort. He didn’t know her during those long months where she’d escape with Raphael into the night; she’s afraid to let Simon in to that part of herself she’s fought for months to push away, but she’s sitting in his room after snooping through his stuff and he isn’t completely disgusted by her, so she wonders if maybe he’s safer to reveal herself to than she thought.

Also, okay, maybe she owes him for said snooping.

“It’s complicated,” she says, Simon opening his mouth to protest until she continues, “because we weren’t even together.”

Simon moves to the desktop computer set up next to the bed, swinging the cheap rolling chair towards him and sitting in it backwards. He scoots the chair so he’s across from Isabelle and wraps his arms over the backrest, cushioning his chin on his hands.

“I’m confused,” he says, frowning. “Everyone acts like you were together— _you_ act like you were.”

Isabelle shakes her head.

“Everyone _thought_ we were together and we let them think it,” Isabelle says. “It was easier than telling the truth.”

“Which is?” Simon asks.

Isabelle sighs. If she closes her eyes, she sees the flashing lights of Pandemonium and the heady rush of white powder up her nose. She feels Raphael’s hands at her waist as they salsa around the club, laughing and spinning and utterly free.

The good doesn’t outweigh the bad, however.

_She’s standing in the Institute kitchen, listing to the side, her head pressed against the heavy steel doors as she fights to keep her eyes open._

_Someone pokes her in the side, and she turns her head, her body still against the door and the cool steel soothing her clammy skin._

_“Long night?”_

_She has to squint to look at Magnus—he’s as shiny as a disco ball today, silver glitter coating his eyelids and the beads on his headscarf catching the light, beaming into Isabelle’s eyes like headlights coming at her._

_“I’m just… tired,” Isabelle says, leaning her head back and looking up at the ceiling._

_Magnus snaps his fingers in front of her face, and she realizes he’s said something and she’s completely zoned out._

_“Okay,” Magnus says with pursed lips, “come with me.”_

_He grabs her hand before she can protest weakly and drags her into the kitchen office, shutting the door firmly behind him and locking it. He pushes her lightly into the large office chair and perches on the corner of the desk, crossing his legs and raising his eyebrows at her._

_“Raphael told me you two were out until almost five last night,” Magnus says._

_“He did?” Isabelle says after a moment of surprise._

_“Obviously, he was scheduled to come in at six and didn’t show up until seven. He’s been dragging ass all day—much like you, I’d imagine.”_

_Isabelle tips her head back against the chair and sighs._

_“We just went a little too hard at Pandemonium last night, no big deal,” she says._

_Magnus scans her up and down and she tries not to wince, knowing what he sees: her greasy hair thrown haphazardly into a messy topknot, her clammy forehead and heavy bags under her eyes, the red lipstick she’d applied that morning in an attempt for normalcy but only serving to make her skin appear even more pale._

_She knows how terrible she looks, and she knows Magnus won’t let her get away with brushing it off as nothing._

_“Isabelle,” Magnus says, licking his lips and clasping his hands over his knee. “I’m worried about you. And Raphael.”_

_Isabelle lets out a shaky laugh._

_“There’s nothing to worry about,” she says. “We’re just having some fun.”_

_“There’s a difference between having fun and needing it. You’re both relying too much on the high, Izzy.”_

_Isabelle looks at him sharply, her stomach dropping like a boulder falling off a cliff._

_“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, too harsh._

_Magnus rolls his eyes._

_“Cut the shit, I know what’s going on,” he says. “I’m not an idiot, I know a coke addiction when I see one. And I’ve been seeing two a lot lately.”_

_Isabelle’s hands shake in her lap, and she swallows, wishing the floor would turn into a black hole and suck her up._

_“It’s not an addiction,” Isabelle whispers bitterly, to hide her panic. “That’s ridiculous.”_

_Magnus just looks at her, in that way that turns her inside out. A concerned judgment, an expression that says, “you’re not fooling me, and I’m not walking away”._

_“Look,” Magnus says, sighing. “I’ve known Raphael for a long time. We… owe each other a lot. But that doesn’t stop me from saying that he’s in a dark place and he’s dragging you down with him. You’re better than that. You’re better than him.”_

_Isabelle’s eyes spark with tears and she aggressively blinks, trying to keep them at bay with sheer force of will._

_“What do you expect?” she says, defensive. “His sister died, Magnus, give him a break. I would be in exactly the same position if Alec died. Or Jace, or Max. Any of my brothers, I would be exactly where he is.”_

_“Really? You mean, you’re not already there?” Magnus snaps back._

_Isabelle jerks back in the office chair in shock, her hand coming to her cheek subconsciously like he’s hit her._

_“So what’s your excuse?”_

_She’s heard Magnus be cold, seen the bitchy mask he throws on when someone’s offended him or defied him. She’s seen him tear staff members a new one, heard his snarky, sharp remarks in bars or in the kitchen toward people who he deemed deserved it._

_But she’s never had it directed at her. The coldness in his eyes and the cutting edge of his words pierces her chest like icicles._

_“He needs me,” she says, finally, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from crying or screaming. “And I need him, and I’m going to be there for him as long as he wants me to be.”_

_“Even if that means destroying yourself?” Magnus says._

_Isabelle forces out a pathetic laugh, tinged with darkness._

_“Don’t you know by now? Us Lightwoods don’t really think highly of ourselves.”_

_Magnus winces, and Isabelle knows she’s hit him where it hurts. It’s unfair to bring her brother into this, and she almost feels guilty, but she’s smarting from Magnus’ cruelty and is obscurely proud of the fact that she can dish it out just as well as he can._

_“I’ve watched this long enough,” Magnus says softly after a long moment, his armor sliding back into place._

_“Then stop looking.”_

Isabelle recalls the fight with Magnus with startling clarity, like she’s watching it on a high definition screen. She looks down at her hands, afraid to meet Simon’s eyes and see her shame reflected back.

“Raphael and I got very close last year, before you were hired,” Isabelle says. “At the time, Raphael's sister was sick, and he tried to hide it from everyone, but I found out one day when I overheard him on the phone with her caregiver.

“I started going with him to see her, helping him figure out her care—he was her only family around since their mother died soon after Rosa was born, and they never knew their father. He needed a shoulder to lean on, and I was there.”

Isabelle swallows thickly and drums her fingers on her knees, breathing through her nose as she forces herself to get through this. It isn’t that it’s a secret, what happened last year, but revealing it to Simon will break the wall she’s built after the fact, and she doesn’t know how well she’ll be able to repair it this time.

“She died,” Isabelle says, nails digging into her palms as she remembers that day, that devastating phone call on the front stoop leading up to Raphael’s apartment, his tears staining her coat and the rain cascading over them like a tidal wave of grief. “She died, Raphael completely fell apart, and I went down with him.”

“We did some… really stupid shit,” she says, “and everyone thought we were dating because we were always together, and I… I knew he didn’t want that, and I respected it, but I let everyone think it because I think a part of me _wanted_ us to be together. In that way. And Raphael cared about me, he just… didn’t want that from me.”

Simon stares at her, slack jawed.

“Why wouldn’t he want to be with you?” Simon asks, incredulous. “You’re, well, _you_.”

He motions up and down toward her body with his hand like that’s supposed to mean something, and Isabelle rolls her eyes.

“Contrary to popular belief, I am human,” she says, the corners of her lips turning up in a joking half smile.

Simon shakes his head fiercely.

“I don’t believe it. Parts of your spaceship are hidden in your closet.”

“I can’t even fit all my boots in my closet, let alone alien tech,” Isabelle laughs.

Her smile fades, the remaining parts of her story floating in her head like neon balloons. She meets Simon’s eyes and shrugs her shoulders, her fingers playing in the ends of her long hair.

“Raphael doesn’t want sex, and that’s totally okay,” she says. “It was… kind of a relief at the time, actually. We were already doing so much, adding sex would’ve only made it even more complicated. I loved him for it, I think. But I also don’t know if that love was because of _him_ or because of the drugs he gave me.”

Simon sucks in a breath, barely audible, but Isabelle hears it, and she wants to leap up from the bed, give Leia a kiss and dash out the door. She’s stronger than that, however, so she sits like stone and forces the words from her lips.

“Mostly coke. Sometimes acid, sometimes molly. Only shit you’d want to party with,” she says. “Which we did. Party, I mean. A lot. It helped us forget.”

Simon’s silent, his eyes wide and hands clasped in front of the chair’s back tightly but allowing her to finish her story entirely, which she’s more grateful for than she knows how to say.

She’s too afraid to say her instincts about him were right. Not yet, not until she’s done. But she hopes.

“Helped us to forget about our families. His sister and my, well, everything.”

“Because of your dad?” Simon finally breaks his silence, and Isabelle bites her lip.

“Yes, but also everything that was happening because of my dad. The cheating scandal, the divorce shit that’s _still_ going on, the press and unwanted attention. Worrying about my brothers, worrying about my mother.”

She sighs, running a hand through her hair.

“Pretending it wasn’t all happening, living my life high in clubs and having a partner in crime to do it with was easier than facing what was going on. He felt the same.”

Isabelle smiles in spite of herself, staring off into space as she remembers. “Sometimes, I miss it. Because I felt so free, like nothing could touch me.”

Isabelle starts when Simon reaches his hand out to still hers, tangled in her hair. His hand is warm as a furnace, fingers rough like she’d expect of a guitarist, and he grips her hand firmly in his.

“That’s how I feel when I’m onstage, playing my music,” he murmurs, a small smile on his face. “Like I’m floating above the world. And I don’t need to be high to do it.”

His thumb rubs against hers, and Isabelle stops breathing, staring at him, his gaze back deep and probing and comfortable, like a large fleece blanket wrapped around her body.

“We’ll find that for you. Your music,” he says.

Isabelle holds his hand tight, her heart pounding in her chest, and she thinks about crying or laughing or just staring, but she does none of those things. Instead, she leans forward and wraps her arms around his shoulders, squeezing him gently.

“Thank you,” she whispers in his ear, tucking her nose against his shoulder and smelling the woods and cinnamon and that stupid man smell that’s like catnip to women like her.

Finding her music—she has no idea what her ‘music’ is supposed to be, but Simon’s sweetness swells in her heart, and she thinks, eyes closed with her nose buried in his shoulder, that her instincts might’ve been right after all.


End file.
